As one of the first people to congratulate Bryan Marlowe and Heather Causnett on becoming amateur columnists with the Evening Press, I now write in dismay - almost drowning in the pool of blinding light blazing downwards from their joint pulpit of sanctimony.

Mrs Causnett's first column (about her gem-of-a-husband's cooking) delighted the imagination and lifted the spirits.

Mr Marlowe is, occasionally, interesting.

At last, I rejoiced, we were getting away from the unremitting cant prevalent in their readers' letters. Sadly I was mistaken.

"Fancy having both of them preaching on the same evening," I said, on April 6, pouring a stiff whisky.

Margaret Lawson,

Aldborough House,

The Groves, York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.