Letters to the Editor

So I am slightly confused by Bradford's Capital of Culture team director Paul Brookes's invitation to your readers to send him their personal cultural experiences (T&A, January 26). These apparently include walks and eating out with friends.

In an attempt to avoid alienating any of us, he seems guilty of a kind of inverted elitism. Instead of encouraging people to take an interest in activities like reading, music, film, theatre and dance (which the Capital of Culture scheme is surely all about), he has decided to include everyday behaviour as "culture".

If this is true, how would we celebrate our status as Capital of Culture? More walks and restaurant meals? Would he describe someone who often eats out as being "cultured"?

I don't know if his application will include a dossier packed with our favourite walks, but if it does I'm afraid he may be disappointed by the judges' decision.

Alex Leach, Clifton Place, Shipley

SIR - Re the T&A supplement of January 23, "Bradford's Finest - your guide to the best shops in Bradford and the Aire Valley". The only reference to Bradford is the photograph on the front page. There are no stores mentioned in Bradford city centre except the one on the front page of the T&A for the same evening - Lostboys, which might quit the city because of crippling rates and shoplifters.

I have lived and worked in Bradford all my life and find what has happened to the city centre embarrassing, with the empty buildings and large stores pulling out of the city.

I think if we put Christmas lights on all the "For Sale" and "To Let" signs in the city, we would have a display to beat London!

If we had a city centre like Leeds or even Huddersfield, I would back the powers-that-be in their bid for Bradford to become European Capital of Culture 2008. However, I can't see this happening in 2020 let alone 2008!

PS: I have woken up many a night in a cold sweat dreaming that Bradford has become one big car park for Leeds!

M Snowden, Highlands Grove, Bradford.

SIR - Could not Bradford Council, instead of spending so much money on "pie in the sky" notions of being Capital of Culture, part with some money for the Priestley Centre, it being a very real cultural asset for this city?

Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire.

SIR - For breath-taking hypocrisy, New Labour tops the Dual Standards League Table.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn (T&A, January 17), reacting to the deaths of over 30 children at Bristol caused by incompetent surgeons, criticises their "club culture", where "people got on in their careers by not rocking the boat". He identified a "profound structural and cultural problem" where the NHS was fixated on its own needs rather than patients' needs. He praised an ostracised whistleblower and blamed a "secret society".

What about the sick joke of the Parliamentary "club culture", where sycophants bail out the sinking New Labour ship for careerist motives?

What about the "cultural problem" of sheepish cloned MPs satisfying their selfish needs and abandoning their constituents?

What of the "secret society" which "sacks" the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for prying into MPs' shady practices?

What about spin-doctors spreading their dishonest virus around the corridors of power?

The NHS (and all other public services) will never meet voters' expectations, while politicians have neither selfless fire in their bellies, nor socialist ideas in their heads.

George and Margaret Riseborough (Defend the Welfare State Against Blairism), Roper Lane, Queensbury.

SIR - The recent planning application by Barratt builders to build a housing development in the small piece of woodland at Ings Lane, Guiseley, would be a farce were it not for the threat it poses to the woodland.

Here we have had a firm by the name of Greenwoods applying for outline planning, and then selling the woodland to a building company whose logo is a green tree who intend building a block of flats there.

To make the situation even more bizarre, the proposed flats are similar to other new developments in the Guiseley area, where flats recently constructed do not appear to be selling to the public.

The result no doubt will be new units offered where possible with your 'old house' taken in part exchange, rather like a second-hand car. If there were a genuine demand across the whole of the property market, these part exchanges would not be required.

The only losers in this sad farce will be other small areas of woodland, which will inevitably become potential million-pound building plots.

I suggest Barratt get rid of their green tree logo, and replace it with a chain saw - a golden one, of course.

Mrs Helen Barker, Ings Lane, Guiseley.

SIR - Your report on a warning by a senior university lecturer that employing more ethnic-minority policemen could be harmful for women trapped in forced marriages seems to imply that potential ethnic policemen and, in the worst-case scenario, current serving officers are intent on ensuring that their religious beliefs with regard to marriage are maintained regardless of the rule of law.

Forced marriages in this country are illegal and if reported to a policeman, regardless of his or her ethnic background, should be treated in accordance with British law.

If evidence is found that any policemen are effectively ignoring their duty to uphold the law, they deserve to be prosecuted for it and possibly dismissed from the service as untrustworthy.

Martin Pety, Haworth Road, Bradford 9.

SIR - I had to laugh when I read the T&A article (January 21) about phone callers not getting through to the Council. Even when you do get through, you don't get any action.

Last August I phoned the tree-cutting department on Bradford 752676 to report three dead trees which needed cutting down. Five months later the trees have still not been removed.

I only hope they do not get uprooted in a gale and do any damage.

G Clements, Rochester Street, Bradford 3.

SIR - May I thank the people of Shipley and district for their generosity. Over the Christmas period we had our "Santa Sleigh" in Shipley making collections, and thanks to their kindness, we raised £597, all of which will be used to help good causes and the needy in the Shipley area.

Mrs M Verity (president, Shipley Lions Club), Squire Lane, Bradford 8.

SIR - I can understand Bradford's desperation to align itself with something positive in these grizzly times for the city, but the obsession for the so-called Pop Idol Gareth Gates is taking desperation too far.

Okay, let's hope a local lad makes good but keep it all in perspective. He's hardly Van Morrison.

The Pop Idol "talent" competition is a sham, with its pubescent little girls sending multitudes of votes for a pretty boy band face.

Youth music should be cutting edge stuff. The current diet of bland, synthetic dancing boys reproducing old hits epitomises the lowest ebb in youth music ever. They make Cliff Richard look dangerous!

Should Bradford really celebrate something as tepid as this?

P J Hunter, Herbert Street, Saltaire.

SIR - When driving in Bradford, if you can avoid becoming involved in a stolen car demolition derby, fight off the hijackers who are waiting to pounce, and steer clear of the pyromaniacs who will try to set your car on fire, you may survive.

If you can evade the cars screeching out of side streets, changing lanes at 50 miles an hour and turning with no indication while being cut up, shouted at and generally abused and intimidated, you will have completed your journey through Bradford.

Personally, I wear rally safety harness and a crash helmet, with two passengers to act as lookouts for vehicles which will approach at high speed from the most unexpected angles.

What we look for are hot hatches with headlamps and spotlights blazing in the middle of the day, spoilers rampant and exhausts the size of the Mersey Tunnel. Usually there is a baseball cap just visible above the steering wheel

When we see one of these apparitions approaching it is time to take avoiding action. Excerpts from "Driving in Bradford - a Simple Survival Guide"

M. Wood, Westercroft View, Northowram

SIR - I have just spent two weeks in the UK to attend my father's funeral. I had my car broken into in London, with £300 damage. The police did not want to know.

I came to Bradford and saw vehicles without tax discs and people committing all sorts of crime openly. What I did not see in two weeks was a policeman on patrol. In fact there are times when Bradford seems to have no officers on patrol.

The real crime figures I think are probably double or treble the stated number as nobody bothers to report most crime as the police response is nil.

Andy Bairsto, Ravenscliffe Avenue, Bradford, and Priessnitzaue, Dresden

SIR - Substantial recent publicity heralding the final lifting of foot and mouth disease restrictions has given the entirely misleading impression that the countryside is now completely open and that all the public footpaths have been reopened.

This is not the case. The disinfecting of farm premises in the Yorkshire Dales and adjacent parts of Lancashire is still far from complete. Many paths are still closed and will remain so for several weeks. This fact has not been communicated to the public and there is now a thoroughly confusing situation with the potential to lead to incidents.

The Ramblers' Association calls upon DEFRA, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Lancashire County Council, and North Yorkshire County Council to issue a public statement that makes it clear that many footpaths remain closed.

It calls upon all these authorities as a matter of urgency to organise a well-publicised, detailed, and up-to-date information service enabling walkers to find out without difficulty which paths can currently be used.

It calls upon DEFRA to do everything it reasonably can to expedite the disinfecting process.

David Kelly, secretary, Ramblers' Association, Mid Lancs Area, and Keith Wadd, secretary, Ramblers Association, West Riding.

SIR - I have a sneaky suspicion that Mubarik Iqbal (Letters, January 22) does not read the newspapers properly. She stated in her letter that it was George Bush's fault that four children tried to ram her car in the supermarket parking lot.

Was it George Bush's fault for the Bradford riots last year, way before we, the American people, decided to take over the world as she states? Was it George Bush's fault that the people of Israel are being slowly slaughtered by Palestinians? Was it George Bush's fault that these children have no respect for their elders and that their parents never told them right from wrong?

You have no respect Mrs Iqbal. It is "President George Bush" to you. Where are your manners?

Diane Duguid, E. 4th St., Deer Park, New York

SIR - How can Mrs Mubarik Iqbal say that Mr Bush's war is unjustified? If 3,500 of your fellow countrymen are murdered in one act and you do not consider that an act of war, then I do not know what constitutes one. And before anyone condemns the USA - this is the most maligned but benevolent country this world has ever seen. What country ever has put so much effort into rebuilding its past adversaries as the USA has - in Japan, Germany and now Afghanistan?

The USA (thank God) is here to maintain the freedom of the western world, which it did (with little thanks) in 1918 and 1942. Maybe just once in a while you here in Europe should just sit and think that for all your freedom, some kid from a farm in Iowa paid the price.

God Bless America. We are not bullies. Just once, a word of thanks would not go amiss. We are also parents and we do not send our children to war without a good cause - the cause being freedom.

Eric Beirmeister, Georgetown, Fenton, USA

SIR - Re Mrs Mubarik Iqbal's unfortunate experience (T&A, January 23). I quite agree that her treatment was disgraceful. I also agree that Osama bin Laden was very probably a very well-behaved little boy. What a pity he changed somewhat in later life.

If he and his Taliban henchmen had seen Mrs Iqbal driving a car I think he would have probably acted more aggressively than those stupid boys.

Robert Hughes, Manor Gardens, Cullingworth

SIR - I would like to respond to Mr Norman Brown's letter "We have human rights too" (January 23). Well done, it is about time more people started standing up to the, usually uninformed, bleeding hearts in England.

Also, on the same day, Mrs Mubarik Iqbal states that "Osama bin Laden never terrorised anyone". Maybe she thinks that the attack on the World Trade Centre, which Osama bin Laden admitted being responsible for planning, was not an act of terror.

It is regretful that she was attacked by some youths with their bycicles, and though I would not condone their action, I wonder if her fondness for Osama bin Laden had anything to do with their hostility?

It is fortunate that she lives in a country that allows her to speak out against Tony Blair and the British Government. If she was living under the Taliban reign in Afghanistan she would not enjoy that right.

Ken Hodgson, Vernon, British Columbia, Canada

SIR - In answer to the query from Mrs Rhodes (January 25), I remember the film White Hell of Pitz Palu.

This was once shown in pre-war days when we held the At Home Day at our Baptist Church. If I remember rightly, a Mr Swain operated the cinematograph.

The story was tragic. The young woman of a couple on honeymoon in Switzerland suffered a fatal fall.

A more cheerful film followed, otherwise "White Hell" might have cast gloom on a happy evening.

I remember the music that accompanied the film distinctly.

Mary Tetlow, Ashwell Road, Heaton.

SIR - I too was very sorry to read about the death of wrestler Les Kellett.

Before the war Les and I were members of the old Thornbury Health & Strength Club, Leeds Road, Laisterdyke. In our amateur days we were coached and trained by Len Pickard, a Yorkshire champ.

After the war Les turned professional. Perhaps this letter will bring back some memories of other amateur wrestlers including the Taylor Brothers, Norman Morrel and Raymond Caseaux.

Geoff Simpson, Ravenscliffe Avenue, Eccleshill.