Professor Eamon Duffy (“Every object tells a story”, 4 April) understandably writes highly of the Ushaw treasures, but I wonder whether it is altogether appropriate to consign chalices into museum pieces. Four chalices feature among the 50 treasures represented in the recent catalogue, all of which were presumably given to be used regularly in holding the wine that is transformed into the Eucharist. This seems to me to set them apart from even patens and ciboria which do not have the same essentiality.I declare an interest. Some 83 years ago my parents (my father had been a lay student at Ushaw) gave a chalice in memory of my brother who died at the age of three. It will rank in historic interest some way down in the list of treasures, but it is unique. Crafted by monks at Buc