THANK you for your article about the “rahs” at Newcastle (“It’s grand up north”, Magazine, February 28). We have the same phenomenon in Edinburgh and probably St Andrews. In the Scottish capital they are referred to as “yahs” or “yah-yahs” by locals.

They are clones of each other — both sexes identical by their apparel, and the girls by their thinness and cigarette-smoking. They live in expensive bought or rented flats. The key feature seems to be their social exclusiveness. They are never in the company of Scottish students or indeed any other nationality.

It must be great to have so much self-conceit and self-absorption. We chippy Scots could never hope to reach such heights.

Richard Scott
Glasgow

Talk of the Toon
As a Geordie and a public-school boy (yes, we do exist), I don’t think I have read such tosh. It is outside Giles Hattersley’s comprehension that Newcastle might be a good university, the city might be genuinely attractive and many of the “rahs” might even be from Newcastle, as we don’t all talk like characters from When the Boat Comes In.

Oh, yes, and he goes to Jesmond, an area of the city that has had “posh” houses (some even have electricity and inside toilets) and rich natives without Geordie accents for generations. (A Facebook group he ignored is “I am from Newcastle upon Tyne and no I don’t have a Geordie accent”.) We should be grateful he didn’t talk about whippets and brown ale.

Adrian Hogg
(Now exiled to) Hutton Rudby
North Yorkshire

Educated choice
While a number of “well- heeled” students are attracted to the educational values and bright lights of Newcastle, 71% are from state schools, as your article made clear. As your own Sunday Times guide states, “the university also enjoys an enviable social mix, with about one in five drawn from working-class backgrounds”.

Andriana Georgiou
President of Union Society

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