Sir, - Like many people, I was very sorry to hear of the death of Prof Basil Chubb. As a student of his at Trinity College, Dublin, in the late 1960s, I remember a tutorial one day on politics and the media.
To illustrate differing views on this topic, Basil told how he had been fishing the previous year on a river in the West of Ireland. The local Garda sergeant had come along to chat and greatly admired a device which Basil carried with him for making tea, using rolled-up newspaper as the fuel. Basil remarked to the sergeant that from his experience exactly one copy of The Irish Times made an excellent pot of tea. The sergeant replied, according to Basil, that that was the best use he had ever heard of for "that newspaper".
From the numbers of papers you sell nowadays, either more people have devices like Basil's or fewer people share the sergeant's opinion.
Either way, Basil was an inspiration to all of us students and a man who did a great deal for the people of this island and beyond. My sympathies to his wife, his daughter and his wider family. - Yours, etc.,
WILLIE McCARTER,
Gollan Hill,
Fahan,
Co Donegal.