OVER the past 12 months we have heard and read some disgusting reports about care homes for the elderly.

I feel that we should also give praise when! it is due. I have a relative at The Flowers Hall, Kirkheaton, she has been a resident there for 8½ years and has always thought that she is staying at a 5 star hotel.

In the time she has been there I have visited her weekly and have got to know many of the other residents as well and they all say they couldn’t be in a better place.

They are all very well looked after, the care staff are kind, gentle and can’t do enough for them. Those that are fit to go (including those reliant on wheelchairs) out are taken to all types of events, eg trips on the canal from Mirfield, shopping trips, concerts, pantomimes etc.

The residents are well fed and look clean and tidy.

One of the residents said to me the other day: “This has been the best move I could have made, here I have the opportunity to bake if I want, or do some craft work and there is always someone to help with these sorts of hobbies, we are also kept up to date with world, country and local news as the newspapers are read to us every day. We certainly do not sit around all day getting bored.”

A big thank you to all the hardworking staff at The Flowers Hall.

A V HORTON

Skelmanthorpe

Defending the hill

REFERRING to the letter “Let’s have TV’s time team on the hill” (Mailbag, January 12), I would question some of the writer’s “facts” about the Castle Hill saga.

The Thandi brothers bought the old pub building not the hill. They got permission to do a little extension.

What they did was demolish the building completely and, of course, their legal right has surely ended. But they built a monstrosity contrary to previous application.

Kirklees council, under pressure from the public, expressed in the Town Hall meeting that it should be pulled down. That brought big expenses to the council and rate payers to arrange it. At the last moment they withdrew it to avoid more expenses.

The decision of the Inspectorate was as follows:

The applicant to pull down the new structure and the place where it stood to put concrete, soil on top of it and turf it to a specific instruction of the thickness of each layer. That was never done as far as I am aware.

The building was pulled down and the mess left. Doesn’t the law apply equally to everybody in this country? How was it possible for the Thandi brothers to put in a new application without fulfilling the legal obligation first?

As to the hill itself. It is undisputable that it is a historical pearl, one of a few in existence.

I have taken photographs there for archaeologists from as far as America and Australia and they confirmed it.

If we are not careful we will lose our most prestigious historical site.

Nobody can guarantee that the steep road to the narrow hill, under heavy modern traffic, will not finish up like the closed road on Mam Tor in Castleton, a hill similar to ours which has been repaired three times due to erosion and closed for good.

All the experts are against the new plan submitted, which looks like a sore thumb on that historical monument. The decision should not be taken on a hoof in that long saga. Serious consideration should be taken first.

Accepting the lottery grant for the modern survey which may reveal much more about the history.

The suggestion that Castle Hill should be protected nationally if the council can’t do it is a good one. Barry Sheerman’s action on Castle Hill is commendable.

TONY SOSNA

Huddersfield

Changing times

IN reply to article in paper on January 12 regarding Castle Hill pub is nothing short of disastrous.

It took a while to take that claim in. Having been born in Almondbury and known Castle Hill and the pub over 70 years, I wonder what word Jon Wright would have used if he had read plans for Stonehenge which are backed by the English Heritage and the National Trust.

First they suggest boring a tunnel to allow the A303 Trunk Road past Stonehenge.

Second, they plan a new state of the art visitor centre which will include cafes, shops, exhibitions.

A land train will transport people into Stonehenge a world heritage site and recording earphones will be used at all corners of the site.

All this information is on Welcome to Stonehenge world heritage site leaflet 50812.

Why have all the parties agreed? Because it is the year 2013. Not the Iron Age, which seems to hang over Kirklees.

DAVE CROWTHER

Liversedge

Festive spirit

THIS morning I found on my doorstep a large paper bag containing a Christmas card and a bag full of Christmas presents.

It was from friends who lived higher up Gynn Lane, but moved away.

I have tried to find their new address, but without success, to say a big thank you.

The name of the family is MacLeod. It would be nice if they got in touch please. I would appreciate it if someone could give me their address.

J B LOCKWOOD

Honley

Why these meat fears?

AS A non-meat eater I agree with Andrew Jackson (January 17) in wondering what all the fuss is about finding horsemeat in beefburgers.

After all, since the main burger chains were rumbled a few years ago, and the BSE scare, burgers no longer contain (we’re told) hooves, genitals or lethal spinal cords.

A horse is just another sentient mammal (ie having similar feelings of pain, fear etc. as humans) with the others, cows, lambs, pigs etc which line up in abattoirs awaiting execution while witnessing that of their companions.

I remember, as a child, hearing the terrified screams of pigs at a nearby slaughterhouse as, fully aware of their fate, they waited their turn to receive the dreadful impact of the retractable bullet through the brain administered full face on by their killers. I still enjoyed bacon butties for years.

I also recall a friend telling me he still ate dead animals ‘with gusto’ after being supplied with wellies to wade through two inches of blood while visiting a slaughterhouse.

If meat eaters are comfortable with all that why should eating the odd slice from dear old Dobbin’s flank or leg faze them? Some of us boil lobsters and mussels alive and eat oysters alive; the top chefs at Claridges have recently served up live ants to be gobbled by the hundred at their gourmet banquets. Anything wrong with that?

Chacun à son goût of course, and I have enjoyed meat in the past. I also recall many meat meals being at least disappointing and sometimes disgusting, including tasteless, cardboardy steak, greasy lamb, dry turkey, rubber chicken and pork with a dubious bouquet. That’s my preference and meat-eaters are entitled to theirs.

Indignation has also been expressed through traces of pork being found in beefburgers, but the issue there is rather different, as potentially offending those who object to eating it on religious grounds.

However, though it may not be clear-cut, my understanding is that such objectors would in any case not wish to eat beefburgers unless the animal had been ritually slaughtered.

Therefore unless the burgers were labelled Halal or Kosher that shouldn’t be a problem either, should it?

Chris Leyland

Marsden

Wrong target

IT IS stated in the news today a Labour MP has suggested the supermarkets should be prosecuted over the matter of horse meat in burgers.

As ever with our elected ones, let's fill the pockets of the lawyers, perhaps even have a judicial enquiry to bore us all rigid for months to come.

No Mr MP you are wrong. The ones to be prosecuted, if proven, are the meat suppliers in Europe who it is suspected have mixed cheap meats, and who knows what else, with beef to save money.

Once again Europe has failed. All that over-regulation, but when it comes to sending stuff into the UK why should they care.

I would like to know from our pontificating politicians why we need to import meat from European countries? Sadly all of our governments over the past 40 years, and political numpties of all parties, have sold our own agriculture down the river to enable foreign suppliers to sell us this kind of rubbish.

Aided, abetted and instructed of course by their paymasters in the EU and stitched up by those wonderous EU treaties they failed to read.

As always our elected ones need to get a grip and do something for the fat salaries we pay them. Look for the right target not the one which get's you a quick headline.

Gez Sharp

Huddersfield