OH what an irritating society we are living in at present.
Daily my calm, peaceful life is invaded by some things I cannot control. Loud background music on TV documentaries and plays where it is not needed, for instance. I liken it to putting the noise of a football crowd as backing to a promenade concert on BBC2.
I really don’t want phone calls (particularly in the middle of Coronation Street), from somewhere in Asia. People who say ya-ya-ya-ya instead of a single yes.
We’ve got interviewers who will not allow anyone to answer a question before cutting in with their own views and politicians in general who think we are all gullible enough to be taken in by any old mush they may tell us.
That is enough for now. I will have to go and have a lie down in a darkened room for a while. But it’s unlikely to be restful – there is the thump, thump, thump of music from a car parked half a mile away!
mrs n clarke
Almondbury
What about pedestrians?
LOOKING back over the years, councils were more considerate of pedestrians. They did manage to clear the pavements.
It was exceptionally hard work on the unemployed during these heavy snow falls, who were required to report for work in order to clear away the snow which invariably included the footpaths. If they failed to turn up, they forfeited their unemployment benefit.
These days footpaths are completely ignored, with the possible chance that the salt from the council gritters that make it safe for traffic may land on the pavement.
Surely these main road footpaths which people have to use to get to the bus stops or go shopping should receive some priority and as an 86-year-old, it is safer to take the risk, and go shopping by car rather than have to negotiate the dangerous conditions which can often exist.
One has to wonder how, when visiting countries where snow is always prevalent, they always appear to deal with the situation and manage to keep both roads and footpaths clear of snow for the benefit of everyone.
r r clarke
Gomersal
Characters from the past
WHAT a remarkable collection of Huddersfield luminaries were featured in the March 1949 photograph featured on page 25 of the March 9 edition of the Examiner!
Ald D J Cartwright was to be the Mayor of Huddersfield when Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited Huddersfield in July 1949. He and his daughter, Shirley, his Mayoress, are in so many photos of that event.
Mayor Clr Oliver Smith was unusual in that he held the position for 18 months (November 1947 to May 1949) because the mayoral year dates were changed.
Former registrar Amos Brook Hirst had been hugely involved in Huddersfield Town AFC and a long-serving chairman until being appointed chairman of the Football Association in 1941. He was knighted in 1954.
Waldo R Briggs was long-serving stipendiary magistrate. I believe he was quite a character – if thought rather old-fashioned – and lived for many years at Imperial Road, Edgerton.
Lt Col W A Hinchcliffe (not Hinchliffe, I think), would be the partner of that name in Armitage Sykes and Hinchcliffe Solicitors.
On a lighter note, the organisation in which I worked made the unfortunate mistake of recording Sir Amos’ wife as Violent Hilda Hirst!
raymond p prior
Stockport
Not fair game
ON buying my programme for the Norwich game on Saturday I saw, to my horror and disgust, a full page advert from the Tories wishing Town well and draped in a blue and white scarf.
Since when has our programme became a political medium? If I want to see Tory rubbish, I would buy a Tory paper like the Sun. I think it is a disgrace and caused me to do something I’ve never done in over 40 years of watching Town. I tore out the offending page, causing me to deface something to do with Town.
I hope this is a one-time mistake and we never see propaganda from any party in our programmes. Keep the programme for football, not some Ashcroft-bought gimmick to try and show the Tories as ‘normal’.
Mr K Adams
Bradley
In democracy’s name
I CAN never understand why people will not give their full names and have to hide with their comments behind initials so that no one knows who they really are. Indeed, in a democracy people should be open.
I have to reply to the comments of GB (Mailbag, March 13) who is a Tory, Labour or Liberal Democrat supporter and apparently thinks Kirklees Council is OK as it is.
God help us all if this is the case. We know how bad things are now and matters can only get worse under the present incumbents.
If GB had travelled the world to many of the largest corporations in the world he would know as a businessman that large businesses are highly inefficient.
The smaller companies (SME) are predominantly the most efficient. This is backed up by international research over decades. Therefore, GB does not recognise what international research tells us and where definitely KMC would be a far more efficient unit if it was broken into smaller pieces.
His remarks concerning independents means that we all stay as we are and that intelligent people with commonsense attitudes cannot enter the fray. Indeed, all candidates from all the main political parties are selected for the party and not for the people and that’s why we have the great problems we have in this country and KMC today.
Independent councillors would hold the main parties to account and, hopefully, sway decisions so they were totally beneficial for the people, not like currently.
Please GB, let’s be open and let’s know who you really are and what your agenda is. I have told the people what mine is through standing as an independent councillor, but what is yours?
Dr David Hill, MBA FCMI
Golcar
A loss of respect
I WAS watching a trailer for a forthcoming TV programme recently where a senior politician rather condescendingly (in my opinion) asked people if they voted and if not, why not.
Are we seriously expected to believe that these people do not know why there is a loss of trust in and respect for them?
allen jenkinson
Milnsbridge
False impressions
THE pictorial representation of Huddersfield’s 2005 General Election results given in the local Liberal Democrats’ publication, The Post, implies that the Lib Dems were almost equal with Labour.
Yet Labour attracted over twice the number of votes (16,341) than both the Lib Dems (7,990) and the Conservatives (7,597).
It also implies that the Greens and the Conservatives combined attracted only 60% of the Lib Dem vote, which is another gross misrepresentation. The actual combination of Green and Conservative votes would have produced in this chart a column significantly higher (12.5%) than their own result.
Their claim of a ‘two horse race’ between Labour and the Lib Dems in Huddersfield is, therefore, false.
At their spring conference Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg called for ‘clean, fair, open politics’, so I imagine he would be disappointed at the timing of the local Lib Dems’ impression of the situation in this constituency.
Having also announced that only the party with the greatest support has the right to govern, let’s hope Gordon Brown will not attempt to seduce Mr Clegg with tricks similar to those presented in this publication.
At a time when trust in politicians is low I call upon their prospective parliamentary candidate, James Blanchard, to correct this mistake and publish an explanation in this paper.
David Heathcote
Greenhead Ward, Huddersfield
The roots of routes
I’VE always been interested in street names and their origins. Huddersfield has many interesting ones.
Mason’s Court was named after James Mason; Lawton Street, Primrose Hill, after the mill owners, and Lockwood Court after Mary Lockwood and her disabled son Anthony, who I befriended when we first moved to Marsh and who worked to raise money for Mencap and helped me with other charity projects.
They tragically lost their lives in a house fire but I don’t think people will ever forget them. Street and place names are part of the town’s history. Any readers got any interesting ones?
colin vause
Marsh
Songs about the town
I READ that Mr Colin Vause was asking for songs about Huddersfield.
I have written many poems/lyrics about Huddersfield which I have set to music.
The United Press nominated me as Poet of the Year in 2008 for some of my poems about Huddersfield. I have also my music In Huddersfield as a signature tune that I have arranged for my band The Mayfair Dance Band.
Brian Noon
Almondbury
