THE OLD FLAT IRON

In a recent issue of Writing Magazine I read that one way to make money from writing is by writing letters - in particular, letters to magazines. Well, recently I was given a pile of old magazines and, purely in the interest of research, I read some of them.
Even in the women's magazines that I used to buy, the letters were all about reality shows and the love lives of TV personalities. There were photos of hen parties and/or animals in silly costumes, and not one letter worth reading, so I won't be making my fortune that way.

But in a sixty-year-old cook-book I found a newspaper cutting of a letter sent to the Times that did make me chuckle.

I can't decide if it was written tongue-in-cheek or not - what do you think?

The old flat-iron

I sympathise with your correspondent who wrote about the flat-iron cure (this page last week).  In case he gets a return of his lumbar pains, he may like to know that a really hot iron is not necessary.

  What is needed is an iron that feels comfortably warming through a blanket, and for the operator to wriggle the point of the iron well into the muscles.

  This, if done for about 10 minutes, will be found to produce a most comforting and lasting cure.

From Lord Sandhurst, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk