Generous help for cancer victim

As a gesture of support for Ciaran and to acknowledge the excellent work being done at St James, a group of Sixth Formers, who were following the Community Sports Leaders Award course, decided to raise funds for cancer treatment and research by organising a Staff-Student 'No-Talent' Netball Tournament.

They raised £1,021.54 which was sent off to the Imperial Cancer Fund. In June this year I pledged to have my head shaved if we could raise a further £1,000. In fact, the amount raised was almost twice that amount - £1,913.94.

This is being divided between the Teenage Cancer Unit and the Cancer Research Campaign.

I would like to thank everyone who so generously supported this appeal - especially the pupils and staff at SGHS. Many other people donated money, including staff at Optident, staff and members at Bodies Gym, staff, volunteers and customers at the Cancer Research Campaign shop and the Heart Foundation shop in Ilkley, my hairdresser, Sheena Kirk, and her friends. and last, but not least, my own family and friends.

I would like to wish Ciaran all the very best for the future.

Rosemary O'Connell

9 Wheatley Avenue,

Ilkley.

Accepting dogs

SIR, - I would like to appeal for the support of your readers for Guide Dog Week, which is taking place this week.

During the week the Ilkley Branch of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association will be organising a number of events, including a coffee morning at Church House, All Saints Church, Ilkley, this Saturday from 10am to noon. At the coffee morning we have Richard Chapman visiting with his new dog, Prince, and Paul, the driver, will have Sergeant the retired guide dog who has visited most of the schools in Ilkley and the surrounding areas.

As a charity, Guide Dogs relies solely on the generosity of the public to enable it to provide guide dogs and other mobility and rehabilitation services that help blind and partially sighted people to enjoy as much freedom in accessing services - such as taxis and minicabs, restaurants and pubs, theatres and cinemas, shops etc - as everyone else.

Guide dogs have been specially trained to safely guide blind and partially sighted people in the UK since the early 1930s.

There are nearly 5,000 working guide dogs across the country, yet nearly all guide dog owners will at some time have their freedom thwarted by being refused entry to services that the rest of us take for granted - just because they have a guide dog.

It is a sad reality that some (but by no means all) minicab drivers, restaurant, pub or shop owners do not recognise guide dogs as working dogs that should always be the exception to a 'No Dogs' policy. Guide dogs' special training and welfare means that their behaviour and cleanliness is exemplary, and guide dogs' presence inside cabs, restaurants and other service areas does not represent a health or safety risk.

So, if you are reading this letter and are involved in providing services to the public, please support the Guide Dogs campaign and ensure that your services are always accessible to dogs.

BETH McCLUMPHA

Chairman,

Ilkley Branch,

Guide Dogs for the Blind

Association.

Tourism aims

SIR, - Your report of the recent meeting of the Ilkley Tourism Management Committee gives a somewhat misleading impression of the nature of the meeting and is unfair to Owen Williams, in that he and his colleague came to the meeting in a state of constructive helpfulness.

It is quite correct to state that the matter of mistaken terminology in a promotional leaflet was raised. However this was not central to the question of promoting the town as a tourist destination.

Owen Williams pointed out that he was there to assist any such promotion but that its form and, indeed, the fundamental question of whether Ilkley should encourage more visitors were for the residents to decide, with the initiative coming from within the community rather than being imposed.

Visitors are essential if Ilkley is to maintain a diversity of viable retail and hospitality business (from which the residents benefit) but visitors may impose congestion and other costs, so that getting the right balance is important.

Moreover, the competition to attract visitors has become intense, so that there is an inevitable need for destinations to market themselves.

In the case of Ilkley this suggests that there should be some local debate about whether or how the attractions of the town should be promoted - what kind of messages about whether and where we live should we pass to the outside world? Has anyone any inspiring ideas?

JIM BUTTERFIELD

30 Valley Drive

Ilkley.

Gorbals defended

SIR, - Exaggeration and disparagement is becoming common currency in describing other people's homes. Now one of your correspondents insults us with her snobbish reference to new housing having some 'passing resemblance to The Gorbals'.

I know the Gorbals district of Glasgow. It retains some of Britain's finest Victorian architecture and a tradition of community action to be proud of.

In this cosmopolitan area it is unwise to make nasty and ill-informed remarks about other people's communities.

Mary Dundas

2 Pines Cottages,

Parish Ghyll Drive,

Ilkley.

Cancer help

SIR, - I would like to ask for your readers' help during Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October.

In the UK,more than 35,000 people each year are told that they have breast cancer. This figure isn't just for women - men are also diagnosed with this disease.

Breast cancer touches many lives, including families and friends of people diagnosed. That's why SUPPORT is the theme of Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign. Our aim is to support people with breast cancer through the application of our research findings to patients, as quickly as possible. But we need your help to do this.

This month you can help support our active breast cancer research programme by taking part in one of our many fundraising events happening across the country. From abseils and Walks for Hope to fashion shows, there are so many ways that you and your family can show your support.

You'll be joining our celebrity supporters - Davina McCall, Gaynor Faye, Mel and Sue, Tania Bryer, Fiona Phillips, to name but a few - in showing that you care about the people with breast cancer or at risk from breast cancer.

For more information about events taking place throughout October, please call Imperial Cancer's hotline: 0870 161 1600, or visit our dedicated website for information about breast cancer: www.breastaware.org.

You can also get a free booklet - '"Breast Cancer, Spotting the Symptoms Early' - which explains how to be 'breast aware' and which changes to look out for, as well as what to do next.

Just send an A5 stamped addressed envelope to: Breast Cancer leaflet, Communications Department, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, PO Box 123, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3PX. The leaflet is free but any donations are always welcome.

SIR PAUL NURSE

Director General,

Imperial Cancer Research Fund,

61 Lincoln's Inn Fields,

London WC2A 3PX..

Two wrongs

SIR, - I'm glad that Garnett's have pulled out of the Wharfedale General Hospital scheme.

Most Otley folk thought in the first place that closing the present hospital and building another in some other place was wrong. And if they had been asked their opinions openly, by having meetings at Otley instead of Leeds, they would have said so.

Quoting Councillor Phil Coyne, who says he is shocked to think this is something about money, I would add to that and suggest that it is, and was, from the very start. And again, another quote from Coun Kirkland, "this saga has been going on for 31 years". It has, and talk of Otley hospital closure along with Middleton Hospital came then almost unpublished in little more than a whisper.

Very slowly our hospital began to have things taken away from it. The most important was the maternity ward. Now there is another threat. The NHS is in discussion for another site in Otley. But won't they ever learn that a wrong is not made right by doing another wrong.

Alf Forder

Lindley Bridge Cottage,

Lindley,

Otley

Menston best

SIR, - The site of the new hospital is not solely Otley's problem, as there are 100,000 people (23,000 in Otley) in the catchment area.

When High Royds, Menston, was named as a possible site it seemed right. Public transport from all parts of the area pass the site and the land 'belongs' to the National Health Service.

Then, in what many consider a flawed process, Garnett's Mill site was chosen. I have spoken to lots of people on this subject and virtually all consider High Royds Hospital the best choice for the new hospital, but, there is a growing feeling that there is no intention of building one.

Can we believe the health authorities? They said that High Royds was the next choice if the Garnett's site fell through.

We now have to go through another appraisal, wasting more time and money. The health authority should now keep their word and take the safe route and go for High Royds as the site for our new hospital. Then we can all focus on getting the best hospital facilities for our area.

Ron Lowe

Honorary Treasurer,

Guiseley and Menston Green,

Belt Action Group (GAMGBAG),

48 West Park,

Guiseley.

FOOTNOTE: High Royds was the second best option - the health trust never said it would plump for it if Garnett's failed- Editor).

Couple thanked

SIR, - May I through your columns, express my most grateful thanks, to the lady and gentleman, who so kindly came to my aid, on Wednesday, September 27, at the Golden Butts tip, it was very much appreciated.

Audrey South

Mornington Road,

Ilkley.