WHEN arranging a Covid-19 home test for an elderly relative being admitted to a care home, I learned the process is not for the faint-hearted. Requirements are time and patience to make a 30-minute telephone call to the call centre, access to the internet and an email address (neither of which my relative had) and all your wits to navigate your way around the raft of instructions in carrying out the test.

If, however, these hurdles are too daunting, the alternative is to take the day off and, with a tankful of petrol, drive to Carlisle – currently the nearest available test centre for my relative’s Glasgow postcode.

S MacKay, Glasgow G41.

DRESSING DOWN

THERE was always something for the Rag and Bone Man, who would appear about three times each year in the 1950s, and his wee horse would be given a piece of bread and sugar ("Those were the days: The Rag and Bone men, 1962 & 1964", The Herald, August 24). Then his horse became too old and he didn't come again; but not to worry, as a shabbily-dressed lady with most of her top teeth missing, and with a strong Liverpool accent, arrived one day with a sob story about needing clothes for her poor grandchildren. She would appear each month and expect something. My mother complied, often giving her very nice things that she should have kept.

Until, one day, my dear parent went to the large market in Liverpool to buy her next batch of baby chicks and there, with a little stall covered in nice clothes, was the "poor lady" selling things she had collected for her equally poor grandchildren, at very good prices. She was smartly dressed and also wearing a full top-set of teeth. My mother gave her the proverbial flea in her ear when she next appeared on our doorstep.

Happy days.

Thelma Edwards, Kelso.

FOREST OF PLANKS

DAVID Miller, in his response (Letters, August 27) to my letter (August 26) about a “Plank of the Year” suggests our nominations of politicians might differ. He may well be right, but there is such a huge choice coming from all the parties that we are more than likely to agree about some candidates.

Michael Watson, Glasgow G73.

TA FOR THE SNYSTERS

I NOTE with interest your recent correspondence on Scots words (Letters, August 25 & 26).

When I was a child one of the accepted rules at mealtimes was that you had to clean your plate before you could have a "snyster". So, you usually did not leave any food on your plate, as "snysters" were treats. In The Concise Scots Dictionary the meaning of the word is given as "sweets, cakes, dainties".

If rarely you became "saucy" and turned up your nose at what was on offer, the threat was that you would get "whummely". I thought that that word was one of my father's inventions, but in recent years, on consulting that same dictionary I found the word "whammle" or "whamlin" meaning "nothing to eat or drink". Words used in my childhood for food which still stir up feelings of comfort are clootie dumpling, saps, girdle scones, and a piece 'n' jeely – not forgetting that confectionery delight, tablet.

Amy Kinnaird, Ochiltree.

I WAS most disappointed to learn that your compiler of Monday's Word Wheel (August 24) has not seen fit to include the words "yitter" and "yittering" in the solution. Like "cockabendie" (Letters, August 25 & 26), these guid Scots (not foreign) words are still in use.

William S Cooper, Strathaven.