Pete Crockett says the history of British education is not simply one of children dutifully accepting adult instruction, while Simon Dawson says Kitty Sayers misses the mark when describing English attitudes. Plus a letter from Kevin Donnelly

Reading Kitty Sayers’ interesting article, I was reminded of the rich, and perhaps too easily forgotten, history of direct action by British schoolchildren (Angry French students take to the streets. British students don’t – and I think I know why, 10 October). Far from being historically meek or unquestioningly compliant, they have demonstrated a remarkable capacity for challenging authority.

At Marlborough college, troops were once summoned to dislodge rebellious pupils occupying an island in the school grounds. In the late 1700s, Winchester college experienced several rebellions.

We need to work together to build a more inclusive history, writes Mags L Halliday. Plus a letter from Shane Ritchie

Sandi Toksvig is right to highlight the systemic bias in information about women’s lives in history (Pass notes: Is Wikipedia ‘deeply biased’? Sandi Toksvig says it is – so she’s backing a rival, 12 October). Her comment about Wikipedia, however, implies that no one is working to correct this bias on the site itself. I belong to several projects whose goals are to reduce the gender gap on Wikipedia.

One, Women in Red, started in October 2014. At that point, only 15.53% of biographies on the encyclopedia were of women. As of October 2026, that has risen to 20.42%, in part thanks to the many volunteers who spend their spare time searching for reliable sources to draw on. The Women in Red project currently publishes an average of 1,500 new biographies every month.

Readers respond to an article by Rachael Stirling

I would like to reassure Rachael Stirling (‘I didn’t expect to be portrayed as a cannibal’: Rachael Stirling on eating her mother Diana Rigg’s ashes, 11 October) that, far from grimacing or feeling disgust over her admission of eating a few grains of her mother’s ashes, I was deeply moved. My best friend’s beloved mother died last year and I immediately sent the quote to her, as I knew it would resonate with her.

As your review of Stirling’s book entitled All About My Mother states, she eats a grain of her mother’s ashes so that she is “cloaked in her, shielded and shrouded by her. I am her. My mother is my superpower. She always was.”

Guardian readers reflect and reminisce about the cooking equipment that has been significant in their families

Among the wedding presents from 1963 that I still use (Letters, 9 October) are Denby ovenware, a complete set of Prestige kitchen utensils, a Victorinox paring knife we bought with money given to us for bedsheets, and smoked-glass wine and sherry glasses from a friend of my parents. When a grandchild noticed that we had rather a lot of flower vases, we had to confess that when asked what we would like as a present, we were so embarrassed that we always said “a flower vase”, knowing that it could come in at any price. It was a vintage year, 1963.
Prue Baker
Brighton

• I inherited my mother’s potato masher, bought just after the war. As a newly married housewife setting up home with everything in short supply and rationing continuing, she told me that she was delighted to see the masher for sale and bought two – one for her sister. It was flimsy – a thin circular metal holed base with three wires attached, which were twisted to form the stem, and a wooden handle painted blue. History and memories in a utensil.
Sue Rawson
Scarborough, North Yorkshire