Letters to the Editor

Not to my home. My husband had to give up work at 58 after been diagnosed with dementia. Nine years later I am still looking after him.

This week I asked for help, after being up 96 hours with one-and-a-half hours sleep. All I wanted was a sitter for one night.

I was told, you go to bed in another room, with a baby alarm. If he falls, send for an ambulance. They will pick him up for you.

I worked on Home Care for five years. I know where the money goes - wasted on courses of no use (away days), too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

May I extend my grateful thanks to the boys and girls of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service for the kindness and dedication shown in picking up my husband after he fell. I couldn't have got through this week without them.

Also the prompt and rapid response from the district nurses, who have helped so much this last 24 hours.

Dorothy Watson, Cavendish Drive, Eldwick.

SIR - As requested, here are some more ways of reducing the waste we have to put in landfill, or even incinerate.

Take a couple of proper shopping bags to the supermarket and save on the tens of millions of plastic carrier bags that are dumped each year. Refuse the extra little paper bag chemists always pop the overwrapped product in. It's already in a plastic bubble or bottle, and then inside a box. A bag is not necessary.

Most envelopes can be used again, at least once, and there is a simple answer to the tons of unsolicited junk mail that comes through Bradford letterboxes. We don't want it in the waste we have to collect and landfill so just write Return to Sender across the front and post it back. They might even stop sending it if you persist.

Alternatively you can write to Mailing Preference Service, Freepost 22, London WC1 7EZ and get yourself "struck off" many junk mail lists.

Councillor Keith Thomson (chairman, Environment Overview & Scrutiny Committee), Heights Lane, Bradford 9.

SIR - I would like to reply to P Wilson's letter of January 16 criticising me for using the words "bleeding hearts" and "do gooders".

I do not need a lesson in English, as I already know the opposites of the above terms. I merely used the expression instead of the one I really meant and that is "bloody hypocrites".

These people crawl out of the woodwork every chance they get to jump on the bandwagon whenever there is a national debate going on.

I don't know if this is for free publicity, or if they are just massaging their own egos, but it's never for the good of the ordinary British people.

Now they are complaining about these British prisoners who are being held by the Americans. What rights should they have if they have been shooting at British troops? If this is proven, then they should be dealt with as traitors.

In the First World War they would have had a court martial, and then been shot.

We have "human rights" too, you know.

Norman Brown, Peterborough Place, Bradford 2.

SIR - Racial tension in Britain is at its highest due to America's unjust war. Four boys aged 11 to 14 on their bicycles blocked the door to a local supermarket when they saw me coming. Not only did they start swearing, they kept on asking what I thought about bin Laden.

They followed me to my car. I ignored them. They started hitting my car with their bicycles from four sides. I knew if I had swayed my car a little they would have been hurt badly. I didn't do that because it was not their fault.

It is George Bush's fault. He has taught everyone to terrorise anyone they can with or without any reason. And Tony Blair has been following him without any questions asked, to terrorise and murder innocent people to achieve their political ends. America wants its bases everywhere to control the Muslim world.

Only I know how I felt during those 15 minutes with the boys on the bikes. But I can tell them what I think about bin Laden. I am 100 per cent sure that he didn't terrorise anyone, especially when he was at those boys' ages.

Mrs Mubarik Iqbal, Oulton Terrace, Bradford 7.

SIR - Time was when religion was far too sensitive and personal a subject for discussion. All major religions are pure, it's only their adherents that sully them.

Bradford Muslim claims that Islam is a religion of peace are historical nonsense. From central Spain to India, from Nigeria to the gates of Prague, the Islamic empire was won at the point of a scimitar.

In the 1920s Turkish Muslims butchered more than a million Christian Armenians, and all over the world at the present time, fanatical muslims are slaughtering innocent followers of alternative faiths.

In the Christian world things are no better, from Tomas de Torquemada and Bloody Mary to the carnage of one million Filippinos by American troops, we ended up with the Nazis in Christian Germany and the double obscenities of Northern Ireland.

Christians are not allowed to forget that we greeted our Saviour with gold, frankincense and myrrh. Thirty-four years later we sold him for a few pieces of silver.

Les Brotherton, Caroline Street, Saltaire.

SIR - In these days of "me, me, me", it was really touching to discover just how thoughtful people can be. And, through your columns, we'd like to say "thank you".

On Sunday, January 13, our car broke down between Harden and Keighley. A number of people stopped to help and my wife and I will never forget the kindness shown.

A big "thank you" once again to these kind people.

V Stead, Elston Drive, Riddlesden.

SIR - In the T&A of January 11, you printed a fascinating item about Bradford Northern floodlights.

I may be wrong, but I always thought Leigh Rugby League Club were the first to install lights at a Rugby League ground. If not I stand correcting.

I don't think there were more than a few weeks either way, and I would care to be informed.

G Long, Leeds Road, Thackley.