BEWLEY’S IS BEST

Further to your correspondence on great cafés of the world (People Like You, Sept 22), my nomination for favourite café would be the newly reopened Bewley’s in Dublin – three floors of iconic stained glass windows with table service. This is where Bob Geldof wrote Rat Trap.

PETER JANSON

Areas, Sept 15) reminded me of when I was 15 and joined two friends in cycling the entire coastline of Brittany back in the Seventies, camping along the way; it was glorious. At 17 I was circumnavigating the Indian subcontinent by bus and train with just a Lonely Planet guide and buddy in tow. Let them get it out of their system young. JONATHAN ASH, COMMENT ONLINE

Excellent article. We all spend our lives wanting and trying to keep our children safe. And then, suddenly it seems, one day we can’t any more.

PETER MILES

I got separated from my parents on a tour of the Vatican when I was five in the Seventies and somehow I made it back to the hotel via a coach party. My

parents thought I was kidnapped by the Mafia. I was busy watching TV in the lobby when they walked in, drenched in panic. BORDER LORD

It’s a thin line between protecting your children and being so overprotective that they aren’t prepared for life post-school when they have to fend for themselves at university and in the workplace. It’s always a tough call for parents to make.

WILL STEPHENS