I REFER to the letters about Robert Service. I have a copy of his birth certificate which shows that he was born on January 16, 1874, at 4 Christian Road.

His father was a bank cashier and a terraced house seems appropriate for a man doing such a job in the 1870s. I can only assume that the claim that Service was born in a large house in Winckley Square is made in his autobiography. He was perhaps being economical with the truth.

I intend to try to have a plaque placed in Christian Road.

Peter Walmsley, Aspels Crescent, Penwortham, Preston.