Letters to the Editor

Does he wear rose-coloured glasses? I know the place where he lives and can visualise every part of the Cotswolds, having spent my young years there.

I came to Bradford with my husband 50 years ago when there was soot and grime everywhere: how I hated it! Thankfully, he agreed for me to go back home every holiday but I cried every time I had to come back to the dirt and black soot on washing and curtains.

I have made many friends here but love to go back every year to the Cotswolds, though the price of property stops us living there. The Dales compare, but Bradford and Keighley leave a lot to be desired.

You are lucky to live in such a beautiful place, Mr Lowry.

Audrey Naylor, Hollybank Gardens, Great Horton

SIR - Sean Connor has got it all wrong when he says religion is "the antithesis of reason" (Letters, October 9). Religion IS reason.

Millions of people worldwide reason that there must be more to life than fast cars and money (or whatever else turns you on).

Millions reason that things must have been created. He says: "Religious hard-liners deny evolutionary science and would have children brainwashed into the creationist belief that our planet is only 6,500 years old." Evolution is NOT a science. Science involves provable facts; which side is doing the brainwashing?

Just because certain creatures may look similar does not mean they have evolved from a common ancestor. It is nothing but a fairytale for adults!

The book, Darwin's Black Box, by Prof Michael J Behe, highlights just a few of the many shortfalls in so-called evolutionary science and the theory of chance mutations.

The murder of Heshu Yones (for wishing to choose her own boyfriend) is tragic; unfortunately it is being used by left-wing, anti-religious people to try to impose upon us that we descended from monkeys.

Forgive me if I sound daft, but I can't see a link between the two subjects.

Matthew Morley, Hill Top Road, Thornton

SIR - I would like to correct a comment attributed to Councillor Martin Love in the story about mobile phone masts in Shipley (T&A, October 8).

The Stewart Report does not recommend that mobile phone masts should not be located within a 500m radius of schools and homes. In fact, the report recognises there can be some advantages in the antennae being located on the roofs of school buildings if certain conditions exist.

This is due to the particular shape of the main signal path from these antennae, resulting in very low values below them.

As a precautionary measure, the report does recommend the use of the guidelines issued by the International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection for areas where the public has access.

Your readers may take comfort in knowing that mobile phone base stations produce values around them that are many hundreds and, often, thousands of times below the maximum permitted International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection levels.

Garry Homer, Director, Electromagnetic Surveys Limited, Grasleigh Avenue, Allerton

SIR - Since my correspondence with Nancy Shields over my discussion of racism in the Faith Matters column, it seems a whole new generation of ethnic equality gurus has burst on to the scene with letters to the T&A.

My message to those taking me to task for changing my original draft before publication - and deleting references to black-on-white abuse - is this: If I had left the examples in BNP activists would have said, "This is exactly why Bradford needs our policies." (Others would have cried "lack of balance" because black-on-black examples were excluded!)

My "mistake", of course, was to be very honest in my response (Letters, September 27) to Nancy Shields (Letters, September 23), who had said the column was one-sided. But then the good people of Manningham expect their clergy to be open - and rightly so.

May I cordially invite all my respondents to next year's Racial Justice Sunday at 4pm on September 12 in St Paul's Church? Please come early: it's always a full house. I expect it will be the only meeting in 2004 that takes an annual stand against racism in this socially splintered city...unless you decide to do something practical yourself, of course!

The Rev Bob Hill, St Paul's Road, Manningham

SIR - I don't intend to embark on long correspondence regarding Phil Boase's views on Europe and the euro, however, he is clearly in error if he thinks there are any proposals to hand UK financial matters to France and Germany (Letters, October 7).

His comments purporting to understand French and German attitudes based on his acquaintances abroad are equally erroneous. Clearly some - if not most - continentals welcome the euro.

I am a Lib-Dem but have many friends and acquaintances who are Tory - "To the right of Genghis Khan" - voted BNP, and one who even stood for the BNP! I would not, however, presume to know the views of UK citizens based on this sample.

John Hall, Pennithorne Avenue, Baildon.

l Editor's note: This correspondence is now closed!

SIR - When Jonathan Dimbleby presented Any Questions? from Victoria Hall in Saltaire he described it as being "next to Skipton and the gateway to the Dales."

I trust this was not the consequence of either the Saltaire Village Society or of Shipley College, who co-hosted the event, wishing to disassociate themselves from the much-closer Bradford and its community, of which the are both part.

Martin Bijl, Fernbank Avenue, Bingley.