Sir,

I was interested in Bob Lowe’s poem ‘Small minded people’, which appeared on last week’s Tenby Observer Letters page.

Since the poet wrote ‘Tenby 2006’ below his verse, I believe it’s fair to assume the poem is set here.

Small towns can be as he describes, of course, besides being populated by others, folk of great largeness of spirit - a few ‘great souls’ living in Tenby spring immediately to mind. Perhaps a poem should be written and published about them, too, to redress the balance.

Meanwhile, for anyone who is exercised by small town insularity v pettiness and hasn’t already read them, I commend two great novels: George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’, subtitled ‘A Tale of Provincial Life’, and Winifred Holtby’s ‘South Riding’.

Ruthie Nixon (née Alton),

Victoria Street,

Tenby.