JMW Turner’s mother deserves respect and understanding too | Brief letters

By Guardian Staff · The Guardian Opinion

Exploring neurodivergence | Volunteer plants | Frankie the flamingo | Thriving jazz | Young letter writers I’m glad we’re starting to look at historical figures through the lens of neurodivergence ( Documentary explores whether JMW Turner may have been neurodivergent, 10 November ). But why give JMW Turner the benefit of 21st-century advances in neuroscience and not afford the same courtesy to his mother, Mary, who was “believed to have had a psychiatric disorder and would fly into a dangerous temper”? This language could have come straight from the admission papers that got her committed to a mental asylum. Jill Metcalfe Bottens, Switzerland • Delighted to learn from Claire Ratinon that our rewilded garden is full of volunteer plants, not weeds ( Had a bad year? Embrace ‘volunteer crops’, your garden’s gift to you, 7 November ). Like her, we have welcomed a surprise crop of squash and tomatoes, and a glut of raspberries, as well as animals. Linda Morris Southport, Merseyside Continue reading...