What a vainglorious chord James Killick (Letters, October 17) struck in my heart.

He spoke of his visit to Canada and of seeing the national symbol of the maple leaf hung everywhere on public buildings and of how his own heart went out to the Americans in seeing how they have all have rallied around their national flag after the appallingly cruel attacks on the US.

These were perpetrated, of course, by other holders of insular, nationalistic and religious views.

It reminds me of my own father's description of a visit to Germany in the early Thirties: Inspiring, perhaps, but proved by events to be ultimately delusional.

-Roger Heygate Browne, Tennyson Court, Hove