Letters to the Editor

They, along with many other Keighley folk, are being very specific about their concern which is: the inappropriate positioning of this facility in the main shopping street of our town.

It is not acceptable to the parents of the children who currently shop at the town's largest toyshop, at McDonalds, at the video games shop, the art and craft shop plus others adjacent to the clinic; the residents of Cavendish Street, who already have a nuisance problem of discarded needles at the rear of their houses; or the traders who believe that they will see increases in theft, abuse, and nuisance for both themselves and their customers.

No-one has said that the problem of drug addiction should be ignored. But the town has other more suitable premises where the social and economic conflicts of a main shopping street can be avoided.

S Stewart, Cavendish Street, Keighley.

SIR - May I congratulate you on your "COMMUNIGATE" (the T&A's new service to advise charities and community groups how to set up free and easy websites). This is by far the easiest way to assemble a web page. Communigate is a well-thought-out title!

A word of advice to all prospective new users. Take your time arranging your write-up before assembling your web page. Make sure it is what you want. This will save a lot of future time re-writing on line.

Having acquired your web page, be patient. Replies may take some time and may surprise you as this is part of the world-wide web.

As you have seen through this column, there are ex-Brits from all over the globe with an interest in our local communities. If you were just thinking of setting up a web page, don't stand on the sideline, do it now!!

T Williams-Berry, Bredon Avenue, Wrose.

SIR - Re Jim Greenhalf's report (T&A, September 12). For how long have heaps of rubbish and graffiti been a sign of deprivation? Surely this is a sign that people do not care about the environment or their neighbourhood.

As a person born in Bradford Moor and having lived there for 45 years, it grieves me to see a once really nice and proud area allowed to become so rundown by the present-day residents.

D Wood, Doctor Lane, Idle.

SIR - My brother is one of 250,000 people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis in this country. Local sufferers lobbied local and national politicians regarding this incurable illness.

At a public meeting in Keighley Library on April 12 last year, it was noted that not one local Member of Parliament deemed a presence necessary.

At a public demonstration of more than 2,000 MS sufferers in Westminster Hall in July 1999 and a trip to Number 10 Downing Street by local MS sufferers and carers, not even an acknowledgement to the fact that a visit to London was to take place was ever given by any local MP.

From the Prime Minister to the national petition and a letter for help from the nationally-respected Multiple Sclerosis Support Group, a bored response.

It seems to many that this Labour Government and its members are not interested in those who voted for a supposedly listening and caring administration, so 250,000 families in this country will take note at the next election.

Mrs Ruth Blackman, Prince Street, Haworth.

SIR - Some time ago the T&A kindly printed my appeal for poems relating to the Royal Air Force.

The response was gratifying and the poems of a very high standard. Many thanks to all those who submitted them.

Now my anthology of Air Force poems, entitled "The Poems We Wrote", is on sale. Max Bygraves has written a lively foreword, reflecting on the days he served in the Royal Air Force.

Copies of "The Poems We Wrote" are available at £7.50 each (plus 95p for postage and packing) and a donation will be made to the 49th Squadron (Bomber Command) Association, for every copy that is sold.

Please write to me at the address below.

Eddy A Coward, 5 Brocksford Avenue, Rayleigh, Essex, SS6 8RH.

SIR - Are members of the homosexual community and those who support them arrogant or unintelligent? I refer to the case of Clause 28 and the cause for further homosexual freedom.

Are they illiterate or do they not want to believe the word of God (the Bible) which strictly forbids homosexual sex or any kind of sex out of marriage?

Of course there is forgiveness but that does not give us the right to freely speak or sin against God's word.

C D Tansley, Sandfield Road, Idle, Bradford.

SIR - "Lib Dems crusade to punish high earners" screams the headline in my morning paper reporting the party conference in Bournemouth.

Press the panic button! Mount the barricades! The dastardly things these Lib Dems will resort to, just to give a few extra quid to pensioners and the education system.

An extra penny on income tax for all above £21,000 a year - a 50 per cent rate for all the millions of us earning over £100,000 a year. Is there no end to the squeeze?

But then read on for examples:

Someone on £35,000 a year (£673 a week) will have to pay an additional £117 a year (£2.25 a week). That's three whole packets of peanuts each and every week.

Anyone struggling to make ends meet on £110,000 a year (£2,115 a week) will have to find an extra £5,116 a year (£98.03 a week) and that's more than a pensioner gets, lucky devil.

Will someone jog my ageing memory and remind me what was the tax for high earners in the early days of our National Health Service which was then, justifiably, the best in the world? Was it 95 per cent or 98 per cent?

Now that was punishment! My case rests.

Ronald Boyle, Selbourne Villas, Clayton.

SIR - While travelling to Peterborough, my luggage was taken from the train by mistake and a young lady befriended me as I was distressed.

She was so kind and I promised to call her if my luggage was found - which it was two days later.

Sadly, I have mislaid her telephone number. She said she lived in Bradford and worked for an Indian charity. I believe her name was Geeli.

Perhaps if she reads this, she could get in touch with me. My telephone number is 0191-378-4766.

S Mirley, Blair Court, Langley Moor, Durham.