Regarding Edwin Heathcote’s Weekend Essay on Stevenage and England’s postwar policy of building new towns (“My kind of towns”, Life & Arts, September 28), I grew up in Hitchin, around seven or so miles from Stevenage, and in 1999 was sent to the local state Catholic school in Stevenage, John Henry Newman.

During my secondary school years there, Stevenage was derided as (and was it true?) the teen pregnancy capital of Europe and the “armpit” of the UK. Its sometimes brutalist 1960s architecture and former estuary-inflected cockney inhabitants lent itself handily to this downbeat view. As a teenager from a different, better-off, town (now yet another homogenous grey-door faux-country desirable commuterville) I was encouraged to believe in this and, crucially, to avoid picking up the accent. Sadly, I was not clever enough then to dissent from this view, despite attending school with many from families who had benefited greatly from the idea and reality of Stevenage.

Now, looking back, I see Stevenage new town for what it was — a great deal of quality housing for people in need of homes, and probably the most extraordinary pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in the UK. We should all be so lucky.

Felicity Hawksley
York, North Yorkshire, UK

As someone who has been interested in fashion since the 1970s, and aware of the sadly dull level of fashion journalism, I was enormously cheered by Kati Chitrakorn’s crystal-clear, expertly opinionated and informative piece on Paris fashion (Life & Arts, October 5). I almost felt as though I had been there with her. I also loved her wry comment about her realistic seating position “at the far back, while clients attending with unique, limited-edition Hermès bag styles enjoyed a clearer view of the show, thanks to their raked seating — let’s not kid ourselves, we know who the priority is here”! Chapeau!

Peter Tear
Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France

THEY are cute at any time of year but French mountain towns peak the two weeks before Christmas when streets are lined with decorated trees, covered in real snow.

In the third week of December last year, my family and I squeezed in some skiing at La Rosiere, a child-friendly resort 1,850m up in the Savoie region of the French Alps.

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Skiing in December can be a gamble weatherwise, but La Rosiere is very high up and better for snow than most, so the white stuff was at least a foot deep everywhere.

La Rosiere is particularly great for festive feels, as it’s a traditional town with plenty of old chalets and little cafes.

There is also very little traffic and scores of festive activities, including a Christmas market and a visit from Santa.

We were staying with package holiday company Ski Beat in one of its shared chalets right in the middle of the action — a blessing given that we were travelling with my five-year-old son.

The resort’s learner slopes were perfect for a first week.

On the first day with the Evolution 2 ski school, he learnt on a tiny hill of snow and by the second day, he was ready for the simplest of slopes.

Buoyed by his success we celebrated with tea and cake back at the chalet.

By the fourth day, he was taking the drag lifts halfway up the mountain and riding the kid-friendly green slopes, lined with little tunnels to whizz through and bells to ding on the way down.

On the fifth day, he was fine to try out one of the easiest blue runs.

There was plenty of ground for my boyfriend and I to cover while our son was in lessons, too.

La Rosiere is relatively small, but with 83 runs of varying difficulty, it kept us very happy for a whole week.

And on one afternoon, my partner skied into Italy to try out their slopes . . .  and pasta.

That’s not to say there wasn’t delicious grub back at our chalet.

Ski Beat is very reasonably priced for the quality of the catering and chalet staff.

The young couple who ran our property were lovely and doted on our son, even when he fired questions at them pre-7am as they made everyone’s hot breakfast.

We had some of our favourite evening meals there, including an excellent tartiflette washed down by far too much red wine.

Delicious grub

The chalet was very comfortable and cosy with a modern look.

Our triple room had plenty of storage and a spacious en-suite bathroom, with a pared-back, natural palette.

Thanks to our location, it was easy to venture out for meals, too.

The Hotel Relais Du Petit Saint Bernard at the bottom of the main ski lifts was the perfect pit stop for a long lunch after the morning’s lessons.

After our dishes of steak hache and raclette, my partner and I sipped beer in the afternoon sunshine while our son dug holes in the snow with a gang of French children.

Meanwhile, the Caffe Latte tea room along the high street was a great place for a midafternoon hot chocolate and cookies, when my son and I bunked off skiing one afternoon to browse the souvenir shops for alpine-themed Christmas presents.

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But the absolute highlight of our meals-out was at L’Ancolie.

The log cabin-style restaurant, tucked away at the bottom of a ski slope, was weighed down under a foot of snow, with rustic wooden walls, open fires and red checked curtains.

We ordered fondue, of course, the delicious house special featuring wild mushrooms the chef-owner picked locally before the snow fell.

As a lifelong fondue fan, I thought that would be the highlight of the meal, but a pudding with meringue, chocolate sauce and ice cream was so delicious it still makes its way into family discussions.

Possibly the best part of the evening was the journey, though.

The restaurant is reached from the town by a 1km path through the forest, which was lined with multicoloured lights.

Away from the roads, it was the perfect festive evening walk as well as an opportunity for a drawn-out snowball fight.

When it was time to head home on December 23, it felt like we were preparing for Christmas round two, such was the extent of the eating, drinking and general fun-having we’d already enjoyed.

Thank you Meredith Whittaker for debunking artificial intelligence systems as the “derivatives of massive network monopolies” (Lunch with the FT, September 28).

I tried to share this inspirational content (which I read in old school paper format) with my daughter, but was paywalled by the online FT, and at the same time cookie-bannered, with the FT telling me they would share my personal data (browsing history) with Google DoubleClick, which is currently under investigation as part of the US Department of Justice’s antitrust investigation into Google’s ad tech monopoly.

Whittaker, who is head of the Signal encrypted messaging service company, ended the article with a call for tech to be “an infrastructure for . . . honesty in the face of surveillance”.

I ended up photographing the article and emailed it to my daughter to avoid Google having access to this data. Now Apple (my phone manufacturer) and Microsoft (my email provider) have their mitts on it instead.

James Cole
Signal User, Yelverton, Devon, UK

AN iconic high street brand with more than 1,000 UK locations is set to shut a popular branch in a major blow to a town’s trade.

Argos will be closing its large store in Plymouth city centre this month, delivering another hit to the already struggling high street.

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The standalone store in the former Derrys building on Royal Parade will close on the evening of October 17.

But a new Argos “store-in-store” will open the next day inside the nearby Sainsbury’s superstore at the Armada Centre.

Sainsbury’s, which acquired Argos in a £1.4 billion deal in 2016, has not yet commented on possible job losses, but reports suggest that up to 30 staff could face redundancy as part of the closure.

This is part of a broader trend, with Sainsbury’s gradually shutting standalone Argos outlets and relocating them inside its supermarkets.

Plymouth previously saw its New George Street Argos store close in 2016, with the Marsh Mills Sainsbury’s superstore hosting a replacement outlet.

With Argos sales falling, Sainsbury’s also discontinued Argos’ iconic printed catalogue in 2020 and has committed to closing 420 standalone stores by March 2024.

Since March 2023, 72 outlets have already shut, with 213 remaining.

Despite lower consumer demand for electronics and games, Sainsbury’s continues to expand its “store-in-store” Argos model, planning to close an additional 20 standalone stores this financial year while opening around 10 new in-supermarket branches.

Plymouth will retain another Argos store at Transit Way.

Argos, founded in 1972, became a high street staple with its catalogue-based model, and today operates around 1,230 outlets across the UK, including those inside Sainsbury’s.

While sales grew 1.7% to £4.23 billion in the year to March 2024, pre-tax profits dropped 15.3% to £277 million.

Argos has closed dozens of stores over the last two years.

The high street retailer has already closed 42 UK shops, including all 34 of its branches in the Republic of Ireland last June.

In July, Sainsbury’s issued a major update on plans to close more Argos stores.