Guardian Readers Recall Cinema's Healing Power and a 1966 Hastings Art School Rivalry

In letters responding to a Guardian piece published on 12 October about cinema's capacity to comfort the bereaved, Geoffrey Meenan of London writes that the deaths of his only sister, his father and his wife within a relatively short period left him able to confirm the medium's power to distract, uplift and rescue a person from profound despair. He states plainly that cinema saves lives. A separate letter from Elaine Fear of Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, recalls the other Battle of Hastings, which she attended on 5 March 1966 at the age of 16 alongside a boyfriend then studying at Leicester art college. She remembers a sack costume and a wild rush down a hill, and notes that the spaghetti bolognese in its English version that she ate that evening marked her first taste of Italian food — a preference that outlasted the relationship. The correspondence appears under the heading 'Rescued by the magic of cinema', alongside letters touching on the comfort of strangers, autumn lights, borrowed books and 'poly wobbles'.