Sackcloth and ashes to begin with to mark my guest appearance here while Simon Bradshaw is on holiday - and pile them as high as you like.

All of us who have been on newspapers a while have learned the hard way that when you are writing about spelling and grammar you check, check and check again.

So, who did not have their brain to the front last Friday and let a double howler into Saturday's paper?

Standards of literacy have fallen to a level worse than before the First World War, we reported.

Only we spelt illiteracy wrong twice - in the headline and in the first paragraph of the story.

Arthur Collis, from Uckfield, was quick to write in to say he had spotted the "deliberate" mistake "but then I am only 81".

When he was young, he said, newspapers were punctilious about spelling without help from computers and spell-checkers.

Malcolm Blunt, from Brighton, thought our poor spelling sadder than the decline we were writing about and Paul Sweeting, also from Brighton, asked why we didn't use our computer spell-checkers.

Ivan Morgan, from Lewes, asked if reporters had ever heard of spell-checkers. Perhaps the decline in standards could be laid at the door of the mistakes in newspapers, he said.

He twisted the knife by mentioning that the day before we didn't know the difference in meaning between the words prize and prise.

"Perhaps the reporters should be deducted pay for every error - that would make them more careful," he wrote.

Bearing in mind that famous remark about not digging when you are in a hole, I won't bang on about zillions of pages, the relentless pressure of deadlines and the daily hurly-burly of making newspapers.

We just didn't take enough care, simple as that. No excuses.

Now to Sir Douglas Bader. Mr G C Dunn, from Saltdean, asked in last week's Feedback if anyone could confirm that the war ace eventually became a group captain.

Yes, he did, said Tom Chilton, from Hove. Bader was promoted to that rank in June 1945 and knighted in 1975. Tom also paid a tribute to Mr Dunn. He was a bomber pilot, respected as an outstanding member of the famous 76 Squadron, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

My old friend Gerald Spicer, from Portslade - who spotted we called Grand Avenue, Hove, Grand Parade in a picture caption in Down Your Way last week - added that although we said in our original story Sir Douglas commanded three squadrons of Spitfires he spent more time with Hurricanes.

Chris Todd asked me to put the record straight following our story the week before last about the closure of the waste management centre at Sompting.

We incorrectly said he was South Downs campaign officer for the Friends of the Earth. No, he is campaign officer for the South Downs Campaign, a network of environmental, conservation and community groups pushing, he said, for the best possible National Park for the South Downs.

Graham Chainey, of Brighton, asked why we put red flashes saying Exclusive on many Argus stories.

"Since the stories in question are local, and you are the only local paper, where else could they appear?" he asked.

All sorts of places actually, Mr Chainey. We pride ourselves, of course, on being leader of the pack but Sussex has a raft of weekly papers plus regional radio and TV stations, all staffed by journalists hungry for scoops.

Believe me, it's a great feeling when we see our local rivals plus national newspapers and telly playing catch-up on stories that we gave our loyal readers several days before.

That's why we put on the red flashes. To underline the point: You read it here first.