Ignorant elders

PERHAPS the next time Lucy Cavendish is being berated by her children ( Mail), she might take comfort from the recollections of Mark Twain, who said that when he was 16 he was appalled at how ignorant his father was — and by the time he was 21, he was amazed at how much his dad had learned in five years.

teRRy kelly, widnes, Cheshire.