Gary Edgecombe, of Camperdown Road, Salcombe, writes:

I have to say, I don’t think I’ve laughed quite as hard at a letter in the Gazette as I did this morning. Mike Hutchins has written a remarkable missive, insomuch as he’s wrong on every single possible level.

First, I suggest he looks up the word he’s objecting to. He objects presumably because I suspect it loosely applies to him. Grockle is an old colloquial term, slang if you will, for a ­visitor or holidaymaker to Devon, in much the way that ‘emmet’ is applied by our Cornish friends.

No offence has ever been intended by the term and as far as I’m aware, no offence has ever been taken – at least, not in my 50 years of living in Salcombe.

Quite how Mr Hutchins makes the leap to applying it to indigenous people defeats me – it’s neither racist nor offensive, and had I taken his absurd views seriously I would resent the implication.

­He also overlooks the fact that the Gazette isn’t in the habit of printing racist ­diatribes, and had the editor considered my letter to have been of that flavour he would have deleted my email in short order.

However, I’m sure he’s grateful to benefit from Mr Hutchins’ expert knowledge of local terminology.

I found the suggestion of closing Fore Street in Salcombe to vehicular traffic quite ­ridiculous and wrote a clearly light-hearted six lines with an alternative, and equally stupid, suggestion of my own. It was a joke, requiring a sense of humour that Mr Hutchins clearly hasn’t got installed.

Thank you for suggesting that I ‘might like to apologise’, Mr Hutchins, I shall be glad to do so when I say or do something I ought to apologise for.

Next time he comes down to the South Hams, might I ­suggest he reflects on the ­wisdom of telling people what to say, think and do when he gets here?

He might like to bring his sense of humour with him too.