Parker, get the Rolls-royce

THE feature on Paddington Station (Masterpiece, March 9) reminded me that it was the last of the great London stations to have a chauffeurs’ ramp that went almost to the ticket gates themselves. Teaching at a West Country prep school, I escorted the boarders at half term on a train to London. To my great embarrassment, my father (managing director of IPC, the then publisher of COUNTRY LIFE) sent his car to meet me on the station concourse. To say a few perplexed parents’ heads were turned would be an understatement! The Revd Simon Barnes, Somerset