Letters to the Editor

SIR - In response to Alec Suchi (T&A, January 7), one of the reasons the Bradford-Huddersfield trains are under-used is they are only once an hour, while the X6 bus is ten minutes quicker and runs every 20 minutes.

Who in their right mind, having missed the train by a couple of minutes, is going to wait nearly an hour when there is a bus leaving every 20 minutes?

With regard to the station at Low Moor reopening, this should be left well alone, it's not going to happen.

I was a bus driver in the Seventies on the now-defunct 685 Oakenshaw route. There were proposals even then to re-open Low Moor station, indeed passengers boarding at Raw Nook were saying I would be out of a job when the station re-opened.

This was at least 29 years, yes 29, years ago.

The saga of Low Moor station will soon be longer running that Last of the Summer Wine.

Andrew Bower, Wroe Terrace, Wyke.

Melborn memories

SIR - In reply to Martin Palliser's letter 'Sad loss of pubs' (T&A, January 9), I am now a 75-year-old pensioner and for many years I was a piano player in about every pub music room in Bradford as the resident piano player.

I first played piano at the Melborn pub (which closes on Monday) in the early 1950s. I used to be paid the magnificent fee of thirty-seven and a half pence per night or as it was then seven shillings and six pence.

Like a lot more musicians I later grew my hair long and bought a guitar and became a club entertainer. I played at venues all over the country, being a star on a Saturday night and then flopping on a Sunday night at another venue.

Owing to my long hairstyle I became known as Dougal and have entertained for landlord Eamon at the Melborn on many occasions.

Further to this I would like to offer my services free to any organisation wanting some entertainment for the older folk as I miss the applause and the pleasure of playing, and I would be glad to hear from anyone who may be interested.

John Robson, 18 Sutton House, Dick Lane, Tyersal, Bradford, BD4 8LJ.

Silly poster

SIR - Re the article on smokers being asked to leave hospital grounds (T&A, January 7), isn't it rather silly to put the demand to extinguish cigarettes on a poster at the entrance to the building itself?

At this stage the smoker has already transgressed the hospital's policy.

P E Bird, Nab Wood Terrace, Shipley.

Our EU giveaway

SIR - People like John Murray (T&A, January 3), who defends the EU, frighten me. None of these people can tell me of one single rational benefit we receive from the EU for all the billions we pour into it.

The only people who benefit are the mainland Europeans and Ireland who have become richer at our expense.

Now we are paying seven billion pounds to make the Eastern Bloc countries richer.

A case in point, we don't get our gas from Russia, but our cost is going up because of the EU.

He also says we have had no wars because of the EU. Wrong, the real reason is because we have nuclear weapons.

If we came out of the EU we could have traded with all the world not just 34 little European countries.

He also says I know which side my bread is buttered. Unfortunately, with Blair giving our money away, I cannot afford butter.

N Brown, Peterborough Place, Undercliffe.

Those EU facts...

SIR - Several correspondents have begged for hard facts regarding UK contributions to and rebates from the European Union.

The current value of the UK rebate, according to the most recent official figures (2004), is £5.3 billion. It is projected to rise to £5.6 billion this year and to £7.7 billion a year on average between 2007 and 2013 if there is no change to the current mechanism.

The UK contributed just under £17 billion to the EU in 2004 (before the rebate).

The European Commission has set out the projected year-on-year increases in the EU budget for the period of the next Financial Perspective, 2007-2013. On the assumption the annual reductions proposed by the UK presidency are accepted, the EU budget will still have grown by around 33 per cent by 2013 when the UK's annual payment, before rebates, will be in excess of £22.5 billion.

Only Germany, with £14,838.3 million (2004 figures), contributes more in GNI-based Own Resources than the UK (£12,026.2 million in 2004), yet our Government is proposing we pay even more. Yet no one even knows where it goes. Eleven years unaudited! Our taxes rise as our public services decline.

Godfrey Bloom MEP, (UKIP, Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire), Main Street, Wressle, Selby.

Feeling isolated

SIR - How good it was to read Mrs Hussain's letter throwing down the gauntlet to those members of the politically-correct brigade striving to render meaningless our Christian celebrations by renaming them so as not to offend ethnic minorities (T&A, January 9).

As she says: "Contrary to popular belief, ethnic minorities are not offended or insulted by symbols, pictures, etc, of other religions."

I made exactly the same point in my letter in the T&A of November 28, 2005.

I'm happy Mrs Hussain is proud of her Muslim faith and feels proud to be British. But there are many Muslims in Bradford refusing to speak English and speaking Urdu instead, thereby putting themselves at a disadvantage in terms of employment/promotion prospects and also, more critically, alienating English-speaking people, many of whom feel deliberately excluded from their company in local neighbourhoods.

Thus, instead of local shopping being a friendly, social experience, sadly, all too often, it is an alienating and isolating experience.

There's nothing new in what I say as appeals for more integration have been advocated by a number of leading figures at both national and local level, including members of Bradford's Ahmadadiyya Muslim Association.

My impression is that those appeals have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Alan O'Day Scott, Gaythorne Road, West Bowling, Bradford.

Popular support

SIR - I resent the implication from N Brown (T&A, January 5) that National Servicemen were some kind of second-class cannon fodder snatched by the state to spare the agonies of indecision suffered by more sensitive souls as to whether or not they should become professional soldiers.

When I was conscripted in 1955, there was an overreaching fear that a third world war was imminent.

At the same time, Britain was fighting colonial wars in Kenya, Cyprus, Aden and Malaya as well as preparing to invade Suez and maintain a presence in support of the Americans in Korea.

None of this could have been done without the support of the population as a whole who were prepared to see their sons sent to the front line in pursuit of what were then seen to be important national objectives.

As conscripts, we were conscious of our responsibilities and we considered our status as trained soldiers to be something of which we were and remain extremely proud.

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley.

You're a mug...

SIR - I feel I have to reply to Geoff Tasker's letter 'Blair is no mug' (T&A, January 9).

The writer is a mug if he believes Blair got 2.4 million people back to work.

All he has done is move them on to Incapacity Benefit instead, which doesn't count as unemployed.

David Holmes, Crestville Terrace, Clayton.