Albatross awareness

sir – As chief officer of a troopship en route to the Falkland Islands in 1982, it was my job to ensure that no albatrosses (“Curse of the Mariner”, Letters, November 23) were harmed during our daily shooting practice.

Sailors believe that these birds are the winged reincarnations of the souls of departed seafarers and killing one amounts to murder. As we are a maritime nation, our students should be warned of the consequences. Captain Peter J Newton MN (retd) Chellaston, Derbyshire

sir – There is a precedent for Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner having a “trigger warning”. When Mervyn Peake’s illustrated version was published in 1943 only seven out of the eight drawings that Peake completed were included. The eighth, Life-in-death, was considered too disturbing for a nation at war. Dominic Weston Smith

Fernham, Oxfordshire

sir – All I remember from studying the

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at school is my English teacher – who was also my cricket coach – saying what a hopeless wicketkeeper he must have been as he could only “stoppeth one of three”.

Rhidian Llewellyn

London SW14