Geoffrey Paish

Sir Mervyn Brown writes: Your excellent obituary of Geoff Paish (February 28) did not cover his second tennis-playing career as a veteran, which stretched from 1975, when veterans’ championships were first introduced and he won the first national over-45 doubles (at the age of 53) until he retired from tournament play in 2001 when, aged 79, he reached the final of the over-75 doubles.

He was kind enough to partner me for a number of years, during which we won four national doubles titles plus one silver medal and one bronze in the world championships. He also won six national singles titles and, with other partners, two more doubles titles. He also captained national teams of various age groups in the World Veterans Championships. He was the best of partners, highly competitive but always considerate and supportive even when things were not going well: the worst reproach I ever received, when I was playing particularly badly, was: “I’ve seen you play better, Mervyn.” Although ailments slowed him, he continued to play friendly, but still competitive, doubles until the last year of his life.

It is doubtful whether anyone else has contributed more to British tennis over a longer period, as a player and as an administrator. He will be greatly missed as a true gentleman of the courts.

Michael Hallifax

Simon Callow writes: I first met Michael Halifax (obituary February 25) in 1979 when I joined the National Theatre Company, for whom he was head of scheduling. He was a legendarily elegant figure, spine erect, suavely suited, exquisitely courteous and totally unfazed by the fiendishly complicated job of programming what was in those halcyon days three resident companies, one for each auditorium.

His desk at the National was famously empty: he seemed to carry all the complex details in his head. One of the company was idly planning to write a murder story set at the National and decided that the killer would have to be Michael, since he was the only one who could get away with it: no one would ever be able to pin anything on him. This was especially delicious as an idea since he was the kindest, gentlest of men, to his dying day.

Pearl Witherington

Nicholas Neve writes: Your obituary (February 26) made no reference to the fact that the French recognised Pearl Witherington Cornioley’s courage and leadership in France in the Second World War to a far greater extent than the British by awarding her both the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’Honneur.

The Maquis cash reserves which you describe her rescuing from the Germans by crawling through the cornfield — an episode adapted by Sebastian Faulks in his book Charlotte Grey — returned with her and Henri Cornioley to London in late 1944, where she handed them back to the MoD together with a notebook accounting for all the expenditure. After the war she returned to Paris and for many years worked for the World Bank.