The Bun House

SIR – I have fond memories of the Widow’s Son in east London (Letters, April 24), also known locally as the Bun House in the 1970s. It was a small but busy hostelry with piano-playing, singing and regular visits from the cockle man and the Salvation Army.

The pub was close to the docks, and the tale behind its name was of a widow whose son went to sea and never returned.

Each Easter she would take a hot cross bun to the pub in the hope that he might one day walk through the door. At the end of her vigil the bun joined all the others nailed to the ceiling, and so the tradition was born. John Williams

Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex