Sir, – I refer to Nicholas Rhea’s Countryman’s Diary last week (D&S, Jan 22).

I remember my mother (a Bradford woman) sprinkling tea leaves on the carpet before brushing it, when I was a child in the 1950s. Always damp tea leaves, out of the teapot.

The key word there is brushing.

If you brush a carpet – with a stiff broom – you generate dust. Damp tea leaves keep the dust down, pick up the dirt, and are easier to collect in the dust pan. Then the whole lot goes on the compost heap.

We did have a Hoover – a wedding present on my parents’ marriage in 1946 – which I am still using. However, my mother also occasionally used the tea leaf system. Whether it has to be tea leaves I don’t know. Maybe they were thought to condition the woollen tufts, or the tannin killed the carpet beetle maggots.

I’m sure it wouldn’t have been practical on a lightcoloured carpet.

Re the Bainbridge electricity generating scheme: the history of electricity in the Dales is fascinating.

There were a surprising number of entrepreneurs in the area, and there were small hydro-electric power schemes in various locations around the Dales. Great to think that Bainbridge had electric lights before some parts of Leeds!

VIVIENNE METCALF Askrigg, Wensleydale.