Swimming tip that saved me from drowning

AT LEAST ten people were reported to have drowned in openwater incidents during the heatwave last week (Mail).

I nearly drowned in the sea a year ago. I was going down for the second time, swallowing large amounts of water and thought my time was up, when I remembered to try to float on my back.

Doing this stabilised me until help arrived. There should be more reminders of this lifesaving tip. JEFFREY GRUBB,

Braintree, Essex.

Thirsty Mr Fox

MY NEIGHBOUR, a 69-year-old keen gardener, is driven mad by foxes that mess up her lawn and plants. She’s tried to get rid of them and often threatens to shoot them with her husband’s airgun.

On the hottest day of the year, a large fox was in her garden and although she tried to scare it away, it kept returning.

Eventually her husband remarked that maybe it was thirsty so, unwillingly, she put out a bowl of water. Sure enough, the fox came to drink and she took a video on her phone.

As I was returning from work, she smilingly stopped me to play the video clip. ‘Poor thirsty fellow, look. Isn’t that lovely? Isn’t he cute?’

Name supplied, London SW17.

Cool sarongs

IN 1968, my wife and I went to Singapore for two years with my job. Soon after we arrived she bought enough fine material to make two sarongs, one green and one lilac. We always wore them in the evenings in very hot weather.

My wife has gone now but I still have my sarong and for two nights last week that’s all I wore in bed. Much cooler than pyjamas.

R. J. CLARK, Cheltenham.

Snow joke

ALONGSIDE the two-day heatwave here last week, it may be worth noting two record ‘colds’ elsewhere: South America’s snow extent is at an all-time high, and the Arctic and Greenland have the largest summer sea-ice extent since 2008.

RODNEY ATKINSON, Stocksfield, Northumberland.

Reservoir flogs

R.A. SMITH (Letters) asks what water companies have done in recent years to create or deepen reservoirs. Where I live on the Isle of Wight, they have closed them all to fill in and sell off.

On one of these sites, planning permission for homes has just been approved. Our water is now supplied via a pipe from the mainland. Is this progress?

JOHN ROSENTHAL, Cowes, IoW.

Situations vacant

PEOPLE say they are struggling with household bills and fuel costs but our small company can’t seem to find staff willing to work for £15 an hour, well above the minimum wage. It just makes me wonder.

PHIL KNIGHT, managing director, KCS Ltd, Towcester, Northants.

Freemason fact

YOUR correspondent R. B. Flight (Letters) is mistaken in thinking a woman Prime Minister could not be a freemason. She might be a member of the Order of Women Freemasons or Freemasonry for Women, which both do much charitable work. It’s a shame some people hold such a negative view of Freemasonry.

NICK WOOTTON, Wallasey, Merseyside.

Brexit banter

TIM COX (Letters) wants us to rerun the EU referendum. I notice he lives in Switzerland, which is not an EU member.

MICHAEL LYNCHEHAUN, Wallasey, Merseyside. ONLY a cheese-eating surrender monkey would refer to Leave voters as ‘alehouse patriots’. MAX BREWSTER, Dickleburgh, Norfolk.

Rishi’s double

A LOT of people think Rishi Sunak sounds like Tony Blair, but his voice and mannerisms remind me of Will from The Inbetweeners.

MICHELLE HULL, Grays, Essex.

Carbon vanity

CHINA, the U.S., India and Russia produce more than half the world’s CO2 emissions. Britain is 17th on the list, producing just over one per cent of emissions. Going carbon-neutral would wreck our economy and have a negligible effect on global CO2 levels. The race to make us do so is a vanity project for politicians.

MICHAEL ALBIN, Blackburn, Lancs.

Gone viral

WHEN Covid-19 was first detected in China’s Wuhan food market, it was suggested a nearby virus lab was researching ‘gain of function’ that allows viruses to mutate and be transmitted more readily among human populations. Now, 30 months on, perhaps we should be telling China: it works.

W. FERGUSON, Bovey Tracey, Devon.

Sweary slip

READING Stephen Robinson’s article about the Met Office (Mail) reminded me of when TV weather forecasters used magnetic symbols. During one autumn forecast, one of the letters had slipped, leaving just O and G, which prompted the forecaster to apologise for the F in FOG.

DAVID BUNN, Lee-on-the-Solent, Hants.