Splitting the difference
Sir: Hannah Moore’s article ‘Split personalities’ (27 July) is brutal. ‘There’s no such thing as a kind divorce,’ she writes. Ms Moore cites Amicable, the company I co-founded after my own long, painful divorce, as promoting the impossible idea of a ‘successful divorce’. Unless you have been divorced, it is hard to understand the pain and soul-searching that ending a marriage entails. Emotionally, psychologically and financially, it tears you apart. Divorce can reduce unhappiness and remove unbearable pressure from families. In broken relationships, the only thing worse than breaking up can be staying together, especially for the children. Do you really want to role-model ‘put up or shut up’ to your kids?
For too long, divorce has been played out in an adversarial legal system that funnels people through a narrative of conflict. It forces them to ascribe mal-intent where confusion rather than hostility exists.
Divorce and separation are emotional issues with legal and financial consequences. Focusing attention on the emotional journey can get you what you want and need – undamaged kids, somewhere to live, enough money to live on day-to-day and security in retirement.
Amicable was borne out of a belief that focusing on the emotional journey – where both spouses work online with a specialist – leads to a kinder divorce. So it has proved. From a standing start we now do more consent orders than nearly any other divorce services provider. I am proud that we have facilitated countless ‘kind divorces’.
Kate Daly, co-founder of online divorce services company Amicable
Mortlake, London
Above the shop
Sir: Wise advice from Rod Liddle on why open protected land that has remained undeveloped for more than 70 years should not be built on (‘Save our grey belt!’, 3 August). One further suggestion for tackling the housing crisis is the enormous opportunity that exists in our town centres. Walking through any small- or medium-sized town at night and above the ground floor there is rarely a light visible. Much of the space is vacant or unused and could, refurbished, provide affordable homes and bring people back to town centres.
The flurry of policy papers from the new government is strangely silent on this. It needs to be addressed before building on open land that future generations will abhor.
Dr Nigel Moor
Blockley, Gloucestershire
Cheap jibe
Sir: Martin Vander Weyer is an intelligent and witty writer, but in his recent article (‘How many summers do you have left?’, 27 July) he makes an uncharacteristically cheap remark about ‘town hall fiefdom and masonic stitch-ups’, which is insulting to several hundred thousand Freemasons in this country (of which I am proud to be one). No Freemasons indulge in ‘stitch-ups’ of any kind and any personal financial gain from membership is against our rules. Millions of pounds are donated every year to charitable causes by honest, hardworking Masons with integrity and overriding consideration for the law.
Simon Whitaker
Beckenham, London
Hole truth
Sir: Your Barometer (3 August) recalls the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta, the 1756 horror story that appalled the public and provided legitimacy for Robert Clive to land-grab Bengal. However, a 1915 investigation by the Calcutta Historical Society concluded that nine soldiers were imprisoned (not 146), three of whom died from battle wounds. Following the defeat, John Holwell, Fort William’s commander, returned to London, where he hammed up the story in a report he wrote titled ‘A Genuine Narrative of the Deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen and Others Who Were Suffocated in the Black-Hole’. The rest is history.
Tom Clayton
Mauritius
Tied down
Sir: I read Christopher Bellew’s letter about ties with interest (3 August). I joined the Blues in 1967 and was fortunate enough to command the Blues and Royals. As far as I know, the tie has always been known as a ‘Guards Tie’, although striped and ornamented ties have been in existence only since the 1920s. The Americans decided that the direction of the stripe could be changed so that they could wear any striped tie they wanted with impunity.
I have to say that, as far as I am aware, the term ‘Brigade tie’ has always been regarded as rather common and only used by the gutter press about Michael Heseltine’s permanent attachment to one. There are, after all, lots of brigades but only one lot of Guards. Mine is nowadays reserved for funerals only.
Hywel Davies
Nevern, Pembrokeshire
Gout shout
Sir: Orlando Bird’s review of A Twist in the Tail, Christopher Beckman’s paean to the anchovy (Books, 3 August), failed to mention that the little blighters are terrible for gout. A mere skim caused my big toe to throb painfully for the rest of the day.
Richard Heller
London SE1
Treble discontent
Sir: Gioachino Rossini was also not a fan of Wagner’s music (Letters, 27 July), declaring that: ‘One can’t judge Wagner’s opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don’t intend to hear it a second time.’ Incidentally, Richard Briand writes that the cat which lived next door was also disdainful of Wagner’s music (Letters, 3 August). It occurs to me that maybe it would have preferred ‘Purr-cell’.
Kay Bagon
Radlett, Hertfordshire
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