After many years working in public mental health, I share the apprehension of a “looming mental health crisis” (“Therapists and teachers warn of looming autumn mental health crisis”, News). Experiences of insecurity, loss and trauma in the school-age population are likely to have proliferated during the pandemic, and opportunities to address such adversity have not been available to most children. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to supporting all those children but there is one lesson from my work. Covid-19 has caused many grandparents, parents or teachers to die in a short period. We found bereavement support for schoolchildren prevented long-term ill health and could be delivered economically in small groups. There are models of support from several charities and professional resources. When I worked in community health, I found school nurses invaluable to connect struggling children with timely help.
Woody Caan
Duxford, Cambridgeshire

This looming crisis seems to have been ignored by the bodies that have control over our education system, namely the Department for Education and Ofqual. The documents produced by these two bodies make little or no reference to children’s mental state when returning to school. Ofqual in its consultation document on changes to GCSE and A-levels only makes an acknowledgment that all students’ needs will be different due to lockdown. They have no plans as to how these children will cope with exams and only suggest very minor changes to exams for 2021 that go no way to alleviate any stress children may be showing.

The DfE seems to think that children will return to school on the first day and carry on as if nothing has happened and be ready to sit exams in a few months. He who does not prepare prepares to fail: it will not be the officiating bodies that will fail but the poor children whose futures depend on these exams.
Michael Robinson
Gosport, Hampshire

I’m happier at home

Stefan Stern makes a compelling argument that the virtual workplace cannot be a substitute for creative group working (“Work is not just about ‘output’ but shared endeavour. Let’s not turn our back on the office”, Comment), and concludes that many people will want to spend a lot more time at the office once the Covid-19 danger has passed. But not everyone. Some of us find working in large, noisy, open-plan offices extremely stressful. The constant hubbub and frequent interruptions seriously disrupt our ability to focus on creative or analytical tasks that require deep concentration.

For us, working from home during lockdown has been a blessing in disguise. At last, we have calm and quiet and we are rediscovering a sense of enjoyment of our work that we thought we’d lost forever. So I’m happy for my colleagues to return to that noisy, crowded, open-plan office, but I’ll continue to work from home as long as I can!
David Harper
Bar Hill, Cambridge

Forget horses. Feel the love

I feel a bit sorry for Kit de Waal, who will only read “things that can happen or did happen” (“‘Introduce a talking horse and I lose interest’”, Books, the New Review). She has missed out on Homer, on Beowulf, on The Tempest. Good fantasy is rarely about talking horses. It’s about love and loss, courage and belonging, just like any other encompassing genre. And because it can have happened to no one, it can belong to everyone. Kit, please give it a go.
Kirsty Nicol
Ormiston, East Lothian

Peas from the same pod

Following the spiteful expulsion of Brexiter MP Julian Lewis from the Tory party, Nick Cohen labels Boris Johnson “a pathetically insecure narcissist who turns on you if you don’t feed his craving for applause” (“If you don’t profess undying love for Johnson, he’ll seek to destroy you”, Comment). This is strikingly similar to Donald Trump’s “craven need for revenge on opponents”, described by his niece Mary Trump in her new book (“America’s worst family”, the New Review). Both Johnson and Trump had upper-middle-class childhoods, but at least Trump has the excuse, according to Mary, of being screwed up by unaffectionate parents.
Joseph Palley
Richmond, Surrey

Cole, not coal

Lily Cole describes two types of environmental activists, the wizards and the prophets (“We need to be more forgiving”, the Observer Magazine). Currently the prophets seem to grab the headlines in the UK, which results in surveys in which 59% of adults say they can’t afford to be greener. When asked what she would do if she were prime minister for the day, Cole described a method of carbon pricing known as “carbon fee and dividend”, which would enable us all to benefit from the wizardry without having to wear hair shirts.

This method, also known as “climate income”, is already adopted in Switzerland and Canada and is seriously being considered in the US. As Cole states, it would “put a price on pollution”, rendering greener fuels, heating, production methods etc cheaper than those made with fossil fuels. The monies earned from the escalating fees on fossil fuel extraction are given back to the public as a dividend. Our government has even acknowledged its advantages, but isn’t minded to adopt it at the moment.

We in the UK Citizens’ Climate Lobby are working hard to encourage our government to change its mind. Carbon fee and dividend could rebuild the economy in a way that doesn’t compound either the disastrous social and economic effects of the pandemic or the disastrous environmental effects of basing our “rebuilding” on fossil fuels.
Catherine Dawson
Devizes, Wiltshire

Open wide? No thanks

James Wong seems to be missing the point rather, in advising people to open their windows to let fresh air in (“Do houseplants really improve air quality?”, Gardens, the Observer Magazine). For millions living in cities and industrial areas, opening the windows would increase the pollution indoofrs, rather than clear it.
Liz Hindle
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands