• YOUR obituary of Fred Grubb says he “had no truck with artistic pretension” (Hiker Fred and a life journey in literature, July 20).

Flaunting non-owning, non-attending, non-hearing, non-seeing of telly, radio, discs, cinema, theatre, concerts, galleries, newspaper, junkets, house or car – not to mention disliking ornaments – sounds pretty pretentious in my opinion.

Although, of course, if he liked living that way then who are we to gainsay him? I don’t own a telly but I can’t imagine living without radios or newspapers.

MICHAEL ZEHSE
Pennack Road, SE15