Letter: Dapping in Ireland

Sir: The main reason for the familiarity of the cheap black plimsolls known as "daps" in South Wales (Letters, 18-21 March) was that they were worn all the time (not just for games) by kids whose families could not afford boots, as in my own primary school in the Thirties.

Certainly "dap" meant "bounce", both noun and verb. The only other usage I know is in trout-fishing, where "dapping" is a method used on Irish loughs in which a large mayfly is bobbed or bounced across the surface using an ultra-long rod and gossamer line.

R PERROTT

London N5