THIRTY-ODD years ago when my two sons were small, they invited some of their friends for a camp out in our garden.

Once settled in they commenced to start telling scary ghost stories, so scary that all but one returned home.

I was reminded of this incident by Christian Vassie’s recent doom-laden missive (Letters, July 11), but unlike the subsequent reply from Keith Isaac, it brought to mind Senna the Soothsayer in the TV series Up Pompeii.

She would rush on wailing “woe, woe, thrice woe”, much to chagrin on Frankie Howerd.

A successful Brexit agreement is no more than a return to the original treaty when we joined.

That is to say a mutual trading agreement and not being a member of an increasingly federalist United States of Europe.

Time to stop looking under the bed and inside the wardrobe, Monsieur Vassie.

Geoffrey Searstone, Moor Lane, York