SIR, in reply to last week’s tongue in cheek letter from Judy Fowler on being tortured by Gerald Stoodley’s offerings on this page, let us be fair.

Firstly he does not have a unique talent in mangling the English language as she states, that opportunity is open to us all and so often inadvertently taken up with gusto and as for blowing his own trumpet, that is an egocovered spiked pit everyone falls into from time to time.

But the gauntlet has been thrown down by the reader saying: ‘If Mr Stoodley retires who will sing his praises’?

My dad in the sixties ran a gang of bricklayers and as a boy they would good naturedly put up with me working with them during the school holidays.

Looking back there was not one of those men that was not worth his weight in gold.

Gerald Stoodley is numbered among them.

Long may Gerald pick up a pen and have grammarians and readers writhing on the ground fuming.

And long may they recover to vent their spleen in these columns.

It all adds to the fun in life that makes the world go round.

Derek Pickett, Ash Tree Road, Andover, via e-mail