Letters: In Brief

Sir: Long before television, Flora Klickman (editor of The Girls Own Paper 1908-1931) warned that we were becoming a "picture minded civilisation". Widespread illiteracy among national servicemen in the late 1940s and 1950s necessitated emergency education programmes by the War Office. "Dumbing down" is much observed ("Dumb Britannia", 2 March). But anyone hearing a hut full of soldiers singing such mid-century hits as "Goodnight Irene" would, I think, turn to the Spice Girls with relief.

DAVID LAZELL

Loughborough, Leicestershire