Madam, - Correspondence about the Sirocco wind (July 1st) reminds me of the moral stance taken by the Scottish Cardinal William Herd, a former dean of the Holy Roman Rota. In the early 1960s, whilst offering spiritual direction to English church students in Rome, Herd pronounced the Sirocco to be even more disturbing than Horace's "mercator timens": so deranging, he asserted, that it was impossible for a man to commit mortal sin while it blew.
This was an opinion of great comfort to us contemplating a celibate life! - Yours etc.,
TOM FINNIGAN, Malin, Co Donegal.