Have your say Oh, how I related to Andrew Unsworth's article, "Going, going Google" (July 11).

Oh, how I related to Andrew Unsworth's article, "Going, going Google" (July 11). I left one of my childhood homes at 13 and only returned years later. In a suburb in Sydney, Australia, our house was wedged between a pole yard and a church. I can still smell the tar used to treat the poles when we played games in the back yard; and hear the Sunday morning hymns wafting through our open windows. When I returned, I was shocked to see the house had gone, as had the pole yard. Both had transformed into a sprawling crèche. The church was a Buddhist retreat.

The same sinking sensation that someone had snatched a part of my life was repeated when I returned to Durban and saw the makeover given to the Athlone Gardens Hotel. After travelling around a little of South Africa, it was here, in 1973, that I started my working life as a receptionist. I stood paralysed in the car park noticing how vastly different the exterior was. Nothing on earth could persuade me to go inside, for I knew that it would also have been altered beyond recognition. Sadly, I turned away, not wanting to know whether the verandah where we'd eaten lunch was still invaded by the vervet monkeys. For all I knew, they might have even altered the direction of the Umgeni River that flowed below and that would have been too much. I left my memories where they belonged, in my heart. - Judy Barnes

Rescued on a nightmare flight

I recently returned from London after a three-week holiday. Two days before my flight home, I was suddenly assailed by a laryngitis virus - so diagnosed by a doctor, who told me I would not be able to fly if I wasn't well and insisted that I return to see him the day of my flight. He then gave me a certificate saying I was fit to fly.

After boarding and settling down in my seat, I suddenly had a whopper of a coughing spell. I knew this type of cough - brought on by my asthma. I had my puffer but it didn't help. The flight attendants showed immediate concern and asked when my condition had started. I was a little cagey as I felt I might be asked to leave the plane.

Instead, they made up a bed for me at the back of the plane and brought out a container of oxygen, after which they nebulised me and I was able to breathe more easily and cough less. Mercifully, I was able to doze off with only intermittent coughing and at 3am these kind people repeated the whole procedure of oxygen and nebulisation.

My point is simply to give a huge bouquet of thanks to the flight staff of Virgin Atlantic. Without their care, I would have had the most terrible flight of my life. - Margaret Kollmer