TYPICAL - no muddled letters for months then two come trundling along in succession (April 6).

With all the certainty of ignorance Jo Jones reckons that because most towns populations are 90 per cent "Anglo-Saxon", they don't have a racist problem.

What level does she calculate the immigrant population must exceed before the racist problem kicks in for her, a (presumably) white woman among what she imagines to be fellow Anglo-Saxons? Her follow-up paragraph begins by unnecessarily asking, "have I missed something somewhere"?

One person who might be of help in matters of basic genealogical research is Mrs Barbara Wright, a time traveller from the Middle Ages trapped in high-tech, present-day Easingwold. Ostensibly Mrs Wright wrote a rambling if spirited defence of that credulous Countess Sophie woman.

But it soon became clear that what we were actually reading was a confused cry for help.

After swinging a pillow at the media and Buckingham Palace for several paragraphs, Mrs Wright suddenly became aware of her surroundings. With her final anguished sentence the truth was revealed.

Barbara's bewilderment can only be imagined as she bravely typed in the words, "good gracious me, it is 2001 not the Middle Ages". I do hope that she is over the shock of it all.

Steve Davenport,

Abbot's Road,

Selby.

Updated: 10:23 Monday, April 23, 2001