HURRAH! Compo, Clegg and Foggy live on – ably supported by those fully paid-up fellows from the Holme Valley Luddite Re-enactment Society. It seem that they've produced a new series, “Last of the Summer Whine”!
It’s always surprising that a small five-letter word, Tesco, brings out the huffing-and-puffing in generally quite-normal people. Their spurious grizzling is rather laughable and there seems to be no basis for such complaints other than that little word, the name of a successful company.
Martin Noble – whose international business acumen should include the word ‘competition’ – should show a more sensible rationale; on the one hand he states that ‘one supermarket is enough’ and then spouts on about democracy through the ballot box.
One can only assume that he will be forming a new party – The Noble Cause? – to fight the next local elections. Put up or shut up is the old adage.
On my last trip to Rangoon the government shops (one shop is enough!) had nothing to sell whereas next door, the black-market shop could supply anything one wanted, from Scotch Whisky to HP Sauce – but at a price. Is this what we really want?
Another correspondent queries the “green” credentials put forward by Tesco and uses these points as a suggestion of yet more “dirty profit”. Good on Tesco if they want to make these claims and if they can recycle or harvest rainwater and use less power then it’s only natural that they will use this argument in their application for planning permission. But for heaven’s sake, let’s keep things in perspective.
Many people think that Holmfirth is a big yawn; that the people there hate the tourism but still want the tourist’s shilling. Traffic congestion is frequently caused by indiscriminate parking by the local people.
However, if the feeling is so overwhelmingly strong then there will be a time for sensible, rather than emotive, representations to be made. After all, this is only a proposal; the planning application is still pending.
GB
Shepley.
Smokeless zones
I HAVE been reading about pubs finding business hard since the smoking ban, and if you drive along most roads you can see public houses are closing.
Surely a better alternative would be smoking and non smoking pubs. Then people would still have a choice, obviously children would not be able to go in the smoking pubs. Or why not go back to the old fashioned tap rooms with air extractors. Also since the 24-hour drinking came in and the pubs open from 11 till 11 trade seems to have gone down. If you go in most pubs it’s very quiet. The publicans still have to pay their staff, so they are paying out more in wages for less trade.
When the pubs used to open at lunchtime say on a Sunday then close at 2.30 they used to be packed. People would go home and have their dinner, not continue to get pie eyed and the possibility at the end of the day the police would be involved.
The politicians who decide on the changes ought to live in the real world. People’s livelihoods are at stake.
Nichola Zaffino
Huddersfield
Get a grip on the gritters
LIKE the reader from Slaithwaite we in Linthwaite saw nothing of gritters or snow ploughs on Tuesday, supposedly out in the early hours by Kirklees Council.
The roads were lethal; Causewayside and Upper Clough so bad that a number of people abandoned the idea of trying to get to work.
In latter years the local firm had the roads clear ever since I can remember.
Time was when the pavements were sanded, but it would appear that pedestrians don’t even matter. In days gone by people on the dole went out to do these jobs, and what about all the people on Community Service, couldn’t they help here?
Come on Kirklees, it’s time to show what you are made of and Colne Valley is still here.
P Mackay
Linthwaite
Name the convicts
ONCE upon a less crime-ridden time than ours one of the deterrents to wrong-doing was fear of friends and neighbours finding out, thus the orange “community payback” vests should have the convict’s name and address stencilled on the back.
Better still bring back the village stocks – justice has to be seen to be done.
Incidentally, the Examiner’s objection to the vests doesn’t quite stack up with its Court In Brief section.
Richard Huddleston
West Slaithwaite
Blame the media and money!
IT IS easy, almost natural for us to condemn Karen Matthews for what she has done. It seems to me that the offer of so much money (£50,000) as a reward for finding Shannon came to be part of the problem, but in the eyes of most people she is evil and deserves all that is coming to her and Donovan.
However, she was born into this world as a baby, where at that time she was not evil. So who are the people who, as she was growing up, were to have a bad influence on her life?
What were the sounds and images that created and developed in her mind over the years, thoughts and attitudes that eventually brought any normal life to an end?
And we should all understand that evil thoughts are created by sights and sounds that are beamed into all our lives, by the media – and money is the root of it all.
Brian Hollingworth
Salendine Nook
Verbal vandalism
I HAVE walked in nearby Langsett district in a place nicknamed “Little Switzerland” for at least 60 years. I have talked to thousands of people of all ages, every one friendly, relaxed, enjoying the tranquility of this beautiful place. In such an atmosphere one can feel only the positive side of the human nature.
Lately that place was greatly transformed. Yorkshire Water spent over half-a-million on it. The local authorities financed a new bridleway, and the Peak Park rangers are taking great care of it, removing fallen trees from paths, erecting benches, replacing styles by gates, protecting it from invasions of hippies and helping courteously the general public.
From Brook House Bridge there was a steep, short cut to the bridleway saving approximately 100 yards. At the top it was fenced already, more than 10 years ago, due to erosion. Recently the bottom of it was fenced as well when the bridleway was given a new surface, financed also by Yorkshire Water.
Last Sunday an individual walked boldly on that eroded stretch. When politely informed by two rangers that the fence was erected for the benefit of the public, his answer was ‘I couldn’t care less for the other people there is a right to roam’.
I mentioned that incident to other walkers; they unanimously asked me to convey a message to that person that they consider his attitude nothing less than an act of vandalism.
Tony Sosna
Huddersfield
With compliments
I WOULD like to thank British Gas for their prompt help when my central heating broke down, on a very cold evening. As I am elderly and disabled I was immensely grateful when they arrived within an hour of my phone call.
The British Gas engineers were all (as they had to come more than once) very efficient, polite and kind, they could not have been more helpful, my thanks to them all.
I would also like to thank my carers who have looked after me so well for the last eighteen months.
Thanks also to Nigel at The Croppers for all his kindness.
M Danford
Huddersfield
Let’s debate DNA database
I TAKE issue with Mark Mercer’s assertion that denying “the police any DNA records, however obtained, is a retrograde step”. Our laws are not created simply for expediency – if they were, we would enjoy no rights whatsoever.
Our laws are established upon a foundation of ethical and philosophical principles without which they would be no better than an assertion of the powers of the state against the individual.
Where a person is either not prosecuted for a crime, or is acquitted of that crime, they are, in the eyes of the law, entirely innocent of it.
That means that the state has a moral obligation to restore that person to the precise situation they enjoyed before they fell under suspicion.
To disadvantage him in any way because they had, at some time, been merely suspected of a crime, is contrary to natural justice and that applies even if that disadvantage is psychological rather than material.
If Mr Mercer believes in a universal DNA database, let him advocate that because at least that would be fair and equitable.
I profoundly disagree with the state having a right to treat the population as potential suspects from birth. As he appears to recognise, such a move could not be made without a public debate and I say bring it on.
I am confident, as I sense he is, that the whole idea would be given short shrift by the public in quick time.
S Foster
Bessacarr, S Yorkshire
The bands play on
I WAS interested in Andrew Baldwin’s feature about when the stars of pop came to see us.
I was lucky to see one of the groups that you said was in Halifax at one of the now closed venues. I attended the concert. It was Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.
The original Pirates left Kidd in 1961 to form the Tornados, who went, on as everyone knows, to Tel Star fame. Johnny Kidd played Halifax on Saturday, October 1 1966 or near that date. It was a packed house and one of the best bands live, I had seen, then or now. It was one of those special rock nights, that was one of his last gigs.
On Oct 7 1966 Johnny Kidd was killed; he died in a car crash in Radcliffe near Manchester. At the time I could not believe we were lucky to see one of the best British bands’ last gig live. Halifax was a good music venue, in those days, as was Huddersfield.
There’s quite a good music scene now – rock bands and rock and roll bands – all for free on most Sundays at places like the Station Tavern and Kings Head.
Frank Graham
Huddersfield
