Letters: Bring back mutton

Man out of time

Sir: That Mary Wakefield left Rowan Williams ‘with my questions for the most part unresolved’ will come as no surprise to his former students, myself included (‘The ABC of faith’, 19 April). As a ‘mature’ student at Cambridge, there was something very inspiring about Williams the academic, but also comfortingly peaceful about the man; someone always on the journey of discovery and therefore reluctant on many issues to be dogmatic or final about them.

His genuine surprise at how the real world operated one easily forgave; his naive approach to other issues, such as Islam, was dangerous but never disingenuous. As an Arabist I did find this hugely irritating. Unlike many shamefully careerist bishops, he found himself chosen for a role as Archbishop of a hugely flawed institution in which – despite the pressures to bend or prevaricate – he always maintained his great integrity. He was undoubtedly born out of time and would have been much more at home among the Fathers of the early Church. He once told me that he had never played team games and was instead always in a book. I think this explains much.

Woolly issue

Sir: Olivia Potts writes that if we eat lamb at Easter, we are eating it in the wrong season, as lambs are born in early spring and need to grow for several months (‘Ewe bet’, 19 April). That means that much of the lamb we eat at around this time of year is from New Zealand. There is, of course, a better way. We should be allowing our lambs to live longer and we should eat hogget – the meat of a sheep of between one and two years of age.