I WAS concerned to read the report about Tom Varga’s encephalitis (Gazette, August 23, 'Tick terror on the fells').

Most people who walk 'off piste'” in Cumbria are aware of the danger of contracting Lyme disease from tick bites, and we are told to use a special tick extractor to avoid leaving infectious mouthparts in the skin.

There are two problems with this: a few years ago we could find no pharmacist in Kendal who sold these implements, but eventually found a vet who stocked them; and young ticks are so small, about one millimetre across, that the extractor is useless and one has to resort to scratching with a fingernail.

The twist-action special instrument does, however, work on older ticks.

All the ticks (and they are very numerous!) which I have picked off myself over the years have been monochrome, either pale or dark, but I have never come across one with the distinctive pattern shown in the report. I wonder if this is a species new to Cumbria?

When we were young my sister and I regularly played hide and seek in the bracken, mostly on Loughrigg. Our dog often picked up ticks there, but we children never did.

Now, if I unwisely go unprotected, I almost always have to remove ticks and am bitten by any which I miss. I wonder whether any other readers have noticed a tick’s reluctance to bite juveniles?

John Mounsey

Kendal