Although I welcome Jane Griffiths’ attempt, if rather excitable, to help me discover the identity of the Cornish Edna Welthorpe (T&E, last week), her claim to know that identity and of a book of Edna’s letters is a puzzle.

First, the Edna letters to this paper are so few they would barely fill the pages of a book of postage stamps. Second, they are so lacking in wit and so devoid of style (apologies, Editor), no publisher would touch them.

Another Edna Welthorpe?  Or fake (literary) news?

More importantly, I can tentatively reveal that our own Edna appears to be a Peter Jay Carlsen- Pinnell. More information (with the Editor’s permission and forbearance), next time.

I do hope the legendary Mr Guppy has arranged for St Ives Parish Church to sound at least one Bong! at 11pm on January 31 to mark Brexit and all the goodies we’re about to receive outside the EU. The £350m a week for the NHS, the wonderful global trade deals far superior to EU deals. Oh, and on Mr Guppy’s sunlit uplands we’ll no longer have to eat straight bananas. Nice!

I’ll be marking January 31 with a few bottles of excellent German, Spanish and Italian wines and some fine French and Dutch cheeses. 

Bong!

Pauline V Conrad (Mrs).

St Just 

17 January