Letter: In brief

Sir: I often wondered why the British locked up my grandmother, half English and half Dutch, in a Boer War concentration camp with her babies. It is nice at last to find out; apparently it was to prevent her helping her husband to fight the British (Historical Notes, 2 September). Rather odd, though, since he was English himself.

Interesting, too, to discover that my father's brother, aged 2 and living in a tent, died because his mother was unhygienic. We always thought it was lack of food. Silly us!

QUINTIN DAVIS

Leatherhead, Surrey