When Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday clash | Nationwide | Ladies’ swimming places | Staples in compost | Marmalade
Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday only occasionally clash, as Rhik Samadder rightly points out (G2, 12 February). But it’s a great opportunity to smuggle heart-shaped crosses of ash on to the foreheads of the faithful; a reminder that true love is costly, painful and usually entails sacrifice.
Fr Alec Mitchell
Manchester
• When Joe Garner, Nationwide’s CEO, appeared on the Today programme recently he was proud to emphasise Nationwide’s mutual status. So, doubly depressing to learn that, as well as refusing to provide housing co-ops (also mutuals) with mortgages, Nationwide has fuelled private sector rent rises by financing buy-to-let landlords (Report, 12 February).
Roger Halford
Knowle, West Midlands