Letters to the Editor

There is no Supt Walker working for the RSPCA in Yorkshire and the North East. I assume she is referring to RSPCA Inspector Trevor Walker.

In her letter she refers to the RSPCA's recently-launched campaign to protect tethered horses. She says she must "dispute" Insp Walker's published statement and then claims that "nobody cares" about tethered horses until something drastic happens.

Insp Walker is quoted in your paper saying: "We have serious concerns about the conditions in which many tethered horses in this region are kept. While the welfare of many of these animals is clearly compromised, legally we are powerless to act unless we can prove that unnecessary suffering has taken place."

I fail to see what there is to "dispute" about this statement. Insp Walker points out that if the law is changed, horses need not die. Ms Alderson criticises the RSPCA for failing to act, but Insp Walker makes it clear that as the law now stands the RSPCA is powerless. Significantly, he also points out we would like the chance to act.

We want to see the law changed so we can take action before a tethered horse suffers. It is glaringly obvious that we do care.

Heather Holmes, Regional Press Officer RSPCA Yorkshire and the North East, PO Box BR29, Leeds 13.

SIR - Having played against Jim Appleby many years ago in the Airedale Quiz League, I have every reason to know better than to contradict him on a point of fact.

However, I must correct him on one point in the latest episode of his ever-enjoyable series Past Times (December 7).

It was the Elite Cinema, not the Coliseum, which in later years housed a film production company - Five Cities Films. I was employed there from 1973 to 1976.

Having said that, the article brought back many memories for me of earlier times when I was adopted in 1946 and lived just across the main road from the two cinemas at 72 Toller Lane for almost nine years.

My recollections of the Coliseum as a roller-skating rink are vague but I clearly recall attending Saturday matinees there and queuing outside the Elite to see "The Greatest Show on Earth" starring James Stewart, Cornell Wilde and Betty Hutton in the early 1950s when going to the pictures or flicks (only posh people used the word "cinema") was something of an adventure.

All such a long time ago now but it's nice to be reminded of it once in a while... Cheers again, Jim.

Mick Booth, Corn Mill, Bradford Road, Menston.

SIR - The authority's strong leadership has been singled out for high praise and full marks were given for its housing and benefit services.

Didn't the T&A publish an article about the council benefits service wrongfully giving out £4million?

If Bradford is rated as one of the best, I would hate to see the worst!

A Aslam, Leeds Road, Bradford.

SIR - Mr Phil Boase (Letters, December 12) asks what planet I am living on and says I must not be a Bradfordian.

I was born in Shetcliffe Lane (Tong) and apart from the war years, I have lived in Bradford for the last 80 years, mostly in Fagley and Undercliffe.

I do not expect every person to agree with my opinions. I am just exercising my right to free speech.

Mr Boase may like the chimney. To me it is an eyesore. Every time I travel by bus to the city, it is there, sticking out like a sore thumb.

I agree with him when he says Wilfrid Pickles called Bradford a "mucky oyl". That just describes it to a "tee". We were taught to take all our litter home. Now they just throw it on the floor and spit their chewing gum on the pavement and tread it in.

I have travelled all over the British Isles as well as France, Spain, Holland and Switzerland, and Bradford is one of the "muckiest" cities I have seen.

N Brown, Peterborough Place, Undercliffe.

SIR - I was interested to read Mr Brown's recent letter in which he wishes to see the chimney pulled down because it is a "brooding monument" to the suffering of working people in Lister's Mill over the past 150 years.

I agree with him but for different reasons. This chimney is of no practical use any more than the adjoining mill structures and should not be allowed to soak up millions of public money in repairs when both that money, the land and the stone of which it is all built could all be put to a solid and practical use - at no cost to the taxpayer.

English Heritage has offered a contribution of £300,000 towards the cost of repairing the chimney, but then what? Is it intended to become a "heritage centre" of some kind and if so who pays for that, not to mention the staff required?

Once again we shall have the Council adding the costs to our rates and taxes.

Is it not about time the Council directed their energies to saving rather than spending money?

R G Jennings, Priestley Hall, Lady Park Avenue, Bingley.

SIR - It is with horror and disgust that I comment to you about the so-called ideas to improve City Hall. We have one of the most spectacular council buildings that would make any city proud, so why alter it?

If money in this city is always available to take on these hair- brained ideas, then why are so many people in the city living in near poverty? It's OK creating a palace to be proud of but most people just want an area and home to be proud of.

Every pound spent on this waste of time should go on people who need it.

City Hall is just fine as it is. I have no objections to a refurbishment of the offices etc, but if you mess with it too much you may as well just pull it down like anything else old in this city!

Andrew C Bolt, Hazelhurst Road, Daisy Hill, Bradford BD9

SIR - What a wide gulf exists in both accuracy, intelligence and common sense between I Khan (Heaton) and the rag-bag of drivel that gushes from Ms Mubarik Iqbal.

The new Afghan regime may give 50 per cent of the population (women) an opportunity to exist but it will be decades before real progress can be made due to the war-lord syndrome.

Afghanistan, like most Muslim countries, simply doesn't understand democracy.

I wasn't aware of our savagery in the Sudan. I thought we just sent them food, shelter and medical aid (where is Saudi Arabia when all these famines arise?)

However, the lady is seemingly uninformed again. For many years the Muslim north have been butchering, with appalling atrocity, the Christians of the Southern Sudan. Fatalities run into the hundreds of thousands.

Les Brotherton, Caroline Street, Saltaire.

SIR - I would be grateful if your readers could help me trace descendants of a Mr H Lister from Shipley who served in the Boer War with St John's Ambulance Brigade.

Recently I was in South Africa and found his grave at Pinetown near Durban. He is mentioned in a diary of my grandfather's cousin who was also an ambulance man. Both men contracted typhoid from the battlefields around Ladysmith.

I have a photograph of his grave and other information which I will gladly share with his descendants.

Mrs A Bateman, The Old House, Far Forest, Kidderminster, Worcs, DY14 9EH.