Chair scare
IN response to your letter about gender politics, newspaper adverts for office staff used to put “clerk/ess”.
Meanwhile, my mother was at a meeting in the ’70s when the young female guest speaker addressing the ladies present started: “Chair and ladies.”
The former suffragette in charge drew herself up to her full height of 4ft 11ins and said: “Madam Chairman, if you please!”
David K. Campbell, Northumberland.