YOU reported the death of Jake Thackray (December 27). Jake was a brilliant songwriter, comic, wit, raconteur, philosopher and observer of the human condition.

Love it or hate it, many of your readers will remember him for his own inimitable style of "singing".

From carols for Christmas to moving songs about prejudice, his repertoire spanned the whole range of human emotion and experience.

He was a genius.

May he never be forgotten.

Graham Tissiman,

Eastfield Avenue,

Haxby,

York.

Updated: 09:24 Saturday, January 04, 2003