Our Christmas tree is a very special one | Letters

Re the study by a team of researchers at Leiden University into the effect of watching horror movies on coagulation levels in the blood (Horror is truly blood-curdling, study finds, 18 December), a much more interesting and serious research topic would be how it comes about that various languages developed terms such as "bloodcurdling", "bloedstollend" etc, centuries before the process of blood clotting was medically and scientifically understood.
Willem Meijs
Clare, Suffolk

" I was interested to read your item on "Britain's oldest Christmas tree", purchased in 1937 (Shortcuts, G2, 14 December). I have just put up, as I do every year, a tree which was bought in 1920 for the first Christmas of my mother-in-law. She had been born on 9 December that year and the tree has been displayed every year since then, either in her home in Sheffield, or in ours in North Yorkshire. Sadly, she, Olive Hoyland, nee Bell, died in July this year aged 94.
June Hoyland
Sowerby, North Yorkshire