SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Sir, - Frank McNally's piece on contradictory loo-signs (Weekend, April 20th) reminded me of a competition run in the mid-1960s…

Sir, - Frank McNally's piece on contradictory loo-signs (Weekend, April 20th) reminded me of a competition run in the mid-1960s by a pop magazine to try to overcome the ambiguity of symbols on doors, perchance leading betrousered women and bekilted men to end up in the wrong compartment, as it were.

Readers were asked to submit their up-to-date ideas for the reinvention of these emblems, and the winner, as I remember it, proposed the image of a smoker's pipe to represent the Gents', and that of a pair of knitting needles, with knitting attached, for the Ladies.

This all seems strangely dated nowadays. Has anybody got any better suggestions? - Yours, etc.,

D.K. HENDERSON,

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