Disability in public life

sir – The conjoined vaudeville twins Violet and Daisy Hilton would not be the first in Britain to get a blue plaque to celebrate disability (report, May 31).

Joseph Merrick, better known as the “Elephant Man” through the eponymous play and film, has a plaque in Leicester. His deformity resulted in a wretched life spent in the workhouse, then a freak show and finally the London Hospital, where in 1887 the Princess of Wales bravely shook his hand. I have wondered if Princess Diana had his story in mind when she visited Aids sufferers. Peter Saunders

Salisbury, Wiltshire