Life in the soap bubble

SIR – It would have been worrying if Michael Hogan (The Week in Arts, January 6) had believed that television soaps represent real life.

As an expatriate Yorkshireman, it has sometimes crossed my mind that I should like to return to the county. I would, however, never dream of it if Emmerdale reflected true Yorkshire village life. There is scarcely a single character who is not paranoid, spiteful, malevolent, criminal, unstable, adulterous and/or murderous. Even the vicar is untrustworthy. Keith Haines

Belfast

SIR – Another way in which soaps do nor reflect real life is that nobody in them swears, due to their being broadcast before the watershed. Pam Chadwick

Lechlade, Gloucestershire