A place to heal for former prisoners | Brief letters

25 Mar, 16:33. UK edition

Group of people talking — One reader recalls the part that Norman House played in helping prisoners rebuild their lives. Photograph: Shutterstock

Brief letters: Merfyn Turner’s legacy | Life under Trump | Millipede banknotes | Mickles and muckles | Swallowing tea

The former prisoner’s letter (22 March) was heartbreaking to read. The Welsh prison social worker Merfyn Turner opened Norman House in 1955, where he and his wife, Shirley, provided a loving, caring, supporting family atmosphere from where former prisoners, jobless and without kinship support, could rebuild their lives and heal. None of those who lived in these houses reoffended. Merfyn recognised their emotional needs as well as their practical ones. We need someone like him to create new Norman Houses now.
Margaret Owen
London

• “The sense that the US is in the grip of a deranged figure is quite common among Iranians,” writes Patrick Wintour (‘Stop this savage being’: Iranians fear postponed Trump attack is merely disaster delayed, 23 March). Just Iranians?
Tim Smith
Settle, North Yorkshire

• Perhaps a millipede could feature on a banknote (‘A toad is a perfect tenner’: experts recommend wild candidates for new banknotes, 21 March). It would make it difficult to counterfeit.
Jude Carr
London

• Regarding the recent hoo-ha about units of measurement (Letters, 24 March), the old Scottish proverb claims “Many a mickle makes a muckle”. But how many? And what do you do with the muckle that’s been made?
Nigel Bateman
Brighton, East Sussex

• My dad, when he was going to have a break from doing a job in the garden, would say he was just going to “swallow a tea”. The idea being that it wasn’t going to be a proper sit-down cup, just a quick one.
Martyn Faulconbridge
Nottingham

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