Remembrance should make us end the hounding of ex-servicemen

sir – It was an extraordinary weekend – not just for the significant and heart-wrenching acts of remembrance, but also for the genuine outpouring of affection for the Armed Services and their former members.

The Government and service charities must use this opportunity. Suicide by former members of the Armed Forces is on the increase, as is homelessness among them. We must do more, and the hounding of former servicemen must be stopped.

St Martin’s, Shropshire

sir – As a retired geography teacher, I resent our group being singled out time and again as a comparison for scruffy politicians like Jeremy Corbyn. Some professions (such as press photographers) make geography teachers look like doyens of fashion.

Marford, Flintshire sir – The legacy of those who fought was supposed to be a country in charge of its own destiny, its laws and its finances. There would be freedom of speech and true justice, with the concept of being innocent until proved guilty being paramount. Above all, they fought for democracy.

Is this legacy crumbling before our eyes?

Professor R G Faulkner Loughborough, Leicestershire

sir – Lord Lexden (Letters, November 2) says that Admiral of the Fleet Lord Wester Wemyss “did not receive the £100,000 grant awarded to other service chiefs, and, while they were given earldoms, he got a mere barony, for which he was made to wait a year”.

In August 1919, grants of £100,000 were made to the principal military and naval commanders-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig and Sir David Beatty, both of whom also received earldoms. Sir Henry Wilson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Sir Hugh Trenchard, the Chief of the Air Staff, received £10,000. Frederick Sykes, Chief of the Air Staff at the Armistice, received nothing. Wilson and Trenchard were also granted baronetcies (not earldoms) in December 1919, a month after Wemyss received his “mere barony” and was specially promoted to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet.

Workington, Cumbria

sir – If ever there was a reason for keeping the thought-provoking programme Something Understood on Radio 4, it was the excellent and poignant edition on Sunday with its favourite host Mark Tully.

We larks and owls will be lost without it.

London SW14