WHILE fully appreciating Adrian Taylor’s sense of outrage (June 30), I feel that, whatever the future of the UK in Europe, and I don’t particularly want to get into that one at the moment, bringing back the stocks is something of a non-starter.

On a point of information, though, I think he will find that religious education is, rightly or wrongly, currently compulsory in all British schools, and that even nowadays, for better or worse, such contain an element of what is generally considered to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

Besides, latter-day perceived wrongdoers tend to be pilloried in the often unforgiving media which can be far more hurtful than sticks and stones.

Finally, I note that the Stanton Harcourt stocks in your accompanying photograph have a roof over them. The medieval English were obviously a bit softer than is sometimes supposed.

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford

 

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