Among all the fevered speculation about Brexit and the ever-continuing media speculation, I picked up Kate Clanchy’s long read (The Very Quiet Foreign Girls poetry group, 14 July). I couldn’t put it down, and when I reached the end I felt a strange mixture of sadness and delight. While we obsess over the economy, Trident, PMs and the EU, there are girls like Priya and Shakila who shine like diamonds and show the bigots and the racists that otherness is not a bad thing and that we have as much to learn from immigrants and refugees as we have to offer them. Thank you, Kate Clanchy, for your piece and for your work as a teacher and poet, and for showing me that it is still possible to be proud to be British.
John Marzillier
Oxford
• My grateful thanks to John Crace for his consistently witty and amusing political diary column. It has eased my soul in a somewhat traumatic time since the EU referendum, as the country I love seems to be sleepwalking into a nightmare. Mr Crace’s ability to amuse will hopefully help reduce my subsequent psychotherapy bills.
Dr Martin Treacy
Cardigan, Ceredigion
