John: Angry letters to the editor

Feb 25 2010 by John Avison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

The second thing I was told is that for every one person who has a good thing to say, another 10 will criticise.

This, too, is not accurate. The ratio in my view is more like one in 20.

The thing about letters to newspapers, in 2010 as in 1970, is that this second rule is writ large.

The Mailbag is there for people to express their views and while some are likely to criticise, grumble, show frustration and even anger, others also use it to thank or praise.

Everybody has an opinion, and the Examiner believes quite rightly that as diverse a selection as possible should be expressed as long as they are interesting, constructive and printable.

What’s more, contributors don’t have their views excluded because the writer is a bit wobbly on the grammar and spelling front.

When I wrote my career-changing letter to the Mirfield Reporter newspaper in the 1970s I laboured long and hard to get the syntax just right and the sentences in such a resounding form that Winston Churchill, had he been alive, would have delighted to read them.

If I hadn’t been completely satisfied with my finished letter I wouldn’t have posted it, and what’s more, the Reporter wouldn’t have printed it.

The writers’ fury still soars in the heavens, it seems, but the manner of its expression now has clipped wings and feet of clay.

How times have changed.