The rule of thumb when using a mandolin in the kitchen | Food

My sympathies to Lucy Mangan after “cutting half the ball of [her] “Remove my thumb with the mandolin” (Semaine Digestée, January 9). I fear that mandolin injuries will represent a significant loss to the NHS. A few years ago, I was in a queue at the emergency room, having torn off the tip of my thumb on a mandolin. The guy behind me had done the exact same thing, although, unlike me, he had taken the cut end in a shopping bag on ice. (My wife later thought she had found the tip of my thumb in the sink. It turned out to be a strip of spring onion and, alas, not suitable for grafting.)
Joel Donovan
London

I have immense sympathy for Lucy Mangan and her mutilated mandolin finger. After several bloody incidents of shaving my fingertips, I realized that I could only use the device safely by wearing a butcher’s chainmail glove on the working hand.
Ian Simmons
Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex