Letter: Modern rites at Stonehenge

Sir: In the Twenties my father would drive us to holidays in the West Country in his bull-nose Morris. As we topped the ridge on the A303, there was Salisbury Plain stretched before us and, in the distance, Stonehenge, looking tiny in the vastness of the plain ("Mystery of the stones decays and dies", 24 June).

We would park opposite the stones and usually there would be no one but us and no sound but the larks overhead, the far-off baaing of sheep and the wind over the grass. We would explore the stones, overawed by their enormous size when close-up. "But what was it all for?" I asked my father. "No one knows and never will," he replied. "It's a mystery."

I have never been back, nor shall I ever. Friends who have visited tell me of the crowds, car-parks, wire and theme-park atmosphere. The mystery remains, but the mysterious ambience has gone for ever.

Yours faithfully,

Arthur Keel

Caversham, Reading

25 June