This was the story of the Great British Privatisation Project of state-owned industries in the latter part of the 20th century. Where are we now?

Any benefits were mainly short term and now we are in the clutches of privately owned monopolies whose owners are anywhere in the world and certainly not accountable to
the public, or anyone else for that matter.

Shareholders are mainly institutions going for profits at the expense of the travelling or consuming public; not the millions of little people who were encouraged to take up the shares, but just sold to make a quick return.

Competition in these areas is a laughable nonsense, as when one price goes up, another follows, then another and so on. Apart from which we are in the grips of foreign sources for so many things, from gas to oil and now even electricity.

There is no real competition in public transport as the Government controls who runs where and when and creams off fees for the privilege.

The Post Office and Royal Mail are rendered nearly useless
with grossly reduced services due to the forced loss of business to "competition".

Once officialdom and its specialists start fiddling, things deteriorate. Those who make these prognostications must have been born with their
eyes closed.

A system that worked for our children

From: Miss Judith M Wood, Canada Road, Rawdon, Leeds.

I found the article by Kenneth Baker (Yorkshire Post, August 16), describing the Government's new curriculum, most interesting.

As we know, everything goes "full circle". I was at school in Skipton in the 1950s and there was (as many people still felt) the ideal system for secondary education.

Junior school pupils were selected for the local grammar school or secondary modern school at 11, and at the age of 12 could be offered another opportunity, with the more academic attending the grammar school and the less academic, and more practically inclined, the secondary modern. Movement between the two schools was perfectly possible.

Also at second-year level, pupils suitable could be selected for the technical school in the nearby town of Keighley – this school catered for those children capable of wanting a technical or business-biased education and had links with local firms and industries (obviously the selection process itself is much debated).

A three-fold education system does, as far as I can see (speaking as an ex-teacher and parent), present a realistic way to educate our teenagers.

Children are not all the same, but must be given the same opportunities, to be educated following their own interests and capabilities.

The country's future is in the hands of our young people and we need to offer them the best education for each of them that we possibly can.

From: David W Wright, Little Lane, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

THE annual charade of witnessing yet more record-breaking GCSE and A-level results, and the dumbing down of the educational system and standards, must surely ring alarm bells in the light of the predicted economic downturn and recession.

With even more students attending university to end up with useless degrees, one has to ask just where are these people getting worthwhile jobs – other than the already bloated civil service and local government?

We cannot go on producing more and more graduates with "mickey mouse" degrees, but insufficient people with practical qualifications such as builders, joiners, plumbers, nurses and budding entrepreneurs.

A cure for all ills

From: Frank Blakey,
Kings Mill Road,
Driffield.

WHAT memories your correspondent Beryl Pearson revived with her letter (Yorkshire Post, August 19). Being in my 89th year and having spent my first 76 years in the West Riding, I can support her list of
child cures and her treatment of measles.

May I be permitted to add to her list one of the favourite cures of that time.

No matter what the illness of a child, the first local recommendation was "Give him (or her) a dose of Cinder Watter".

To the uninitiated, cold water was placed in a metal pan and red hot cinder straight from the coal fire
was added.

The water was then poured through a small sieve to clear the cinder particles.

When the water had cooled enough to drink, the child got its first dose of medication.

All this medicine probably prepared my stomach for the food I received at home and abroad during Army service in the last war.

Charities face red-tape recipe for disaster

From: Wendy Field, Spellogate Close, Driffield.

I READ with dismay the article regarding Mr and Mrs Tovey (Yorkshire Post, August 16), who have been making and selling cakes made in their home near Cleethorpes, and have already raised £900 in two years for the RNLI.

Recently, the local council inspected their home for hygiene and Mr and Mrs Tovey gained four out of five but the council regarded their kind gesture as a business, so therefore Mrs Tovey was breaching health and safety and planning rules. Need I go on?

Shall we therefore be banned from holding cake stalls or various events for raising money? What are things coming to?

Can anybody inform me who makes these rules? How are we to help these various charities who rely on the public to keep them going?

I say well done to Mr and Mrs Tovey and many congratulations.

Skipton is let down by lack of a bus station

From: Paul Kirby, The Chase, Wetherby.

I TRY to visit Skipton two or three times a year as it has so much to offer, especially on market days.

I always use the bus, and it dawned on me last week that nothing much has changed regarding public transport facilities in the past 10 years.

This really is a disgrace for such a large town with very good bus links to Preston, Burnley, Harrogate, Ilkley, Leeds, Keighley, Grassington, as well as all the local villages. More and more over-60s are using the buses, and yet Skipton still has a piece of tarmac as a bus station.

I am no fan of Metro (the Passenger Transport Authority for West Yorkshire) but one thing they are good at is building bus stations.

I do not know whether it is North Yorkshire County Council or Craven Council who is to blame for this fiasco, but they really ought to sort this out soon. Surely, the private sector will pay for the vast majority of a new bus station if shops are included in the plans? It is in a prime location, after all.

No bus station means very little information available.
So, I went to the obvious
two places to find timetables and leaflets.

The Tourist Information Centre is not easy to find, even though I tried to follow the signs. There was only one leaflet on show so I had to ask for a specific timetable, which was retrieved from the back.

Worse was to come in the library which had none on display and, again, you had to ask for one.

This does not encourage bus users like me who like to travel here, there and everywhere, or the car user, to be more environmentally friendly. All libraries in Leeds have local timetables on display.

I hope this letter will encourage the people of Skipton to harass their councillors and campaign for a new bus station.

Farmers weather storms of political interference

From: Malcolm Rainforth, Castle Mills, Waterside, Knaresborough.

IS Duncan Anderson living on a different planet to us farmers (Yorkshire Post, August 16)? Although I am retired from farming now, I do keep up
with events.

Have you, Duncan, not noticed all the wet stuff falling from the sky these past few weeks, the bumper crops you have seen? Well, harvest now of these such crops is a salvage job. A lot of milling wheat, unless the weather turns for the better soon, is feed wheat for cattle, etc and not for bread.

But, anyway, the weather has very little to do with food shortages. These are more caused by meddling politicians, both here and in the EU, who may I say have their large snouts too far into the pig trough, and won't have noticed that the cost of living has risen. They are so ignorant that food, etc is nearly a luxury item today.

This country cannot take out large chunks of land from growing food just because a
few years ago we had a few days' supply of grain and
dairy products in stock for a rainy day.

These stores are empty now, demand has risen in the world so up went the price of food. Yes, set-aside has been abandoned for now but the damage has been done.

Farmers are for growing food and should be left to do that and let's not forget farmers' costs have also risen – fuel, fertiliser etc.

Let's not forget also, when did a large supermarket last go bust? They, like a lot of others, such as oil companies, gas, etc. seem to be making huge profits. Out of whom?

Well, Joe Public of course.

No change for the Tories

From: Duncan Anderson, Mill Lane, East Halton, Immingham.

I SEE Tory leadership dreamer, George Osborne, has yet again shown that current Tory policy is sadly lacking in policy (Yorkshire Post, August 20).

It gives the appearance of being shallow, ill-conceived and a sad attempt to hoodwink the British electorate.

One thing did shine through; the Tory Party hasn't really changed – it still believes in market forces driving economic policy. Which means it still believes in boom and bust. And, therefore, it still believes in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Proper jobs are needed

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Littlefield Lane, Grimsby.

THE British Chamber of Commerce are saying that "an increase above two million (jobless) cannot be ruled out" (Yorkshire Post, August 18).

In that case, can we have an end to plans – supported
by both major parties alas – to make the long-term unemployed do compulsory voluntary work for their benefit?

There is a real shortage of work opportunities, especially in many towns and cities that never fully got over the loss of their traditional heavy industry.

What's needed are proper jobs paying at least the minimum wage, not cheap labour schemes which make the jobless feel they are being punished for the failure of politicians to manage the economy.

Birds and a deadly disease

From: Joan Scott, Poplar Close, Eggborough, Goole.

THE title of Lorna Young's correspondence "Our lives are blighted by these birds" (Yorkshire Post, August 14), I found, I'm afraid, somewhat of an understatement. In my experience, these birds are killers.

Bird flu and parrot's disease (Psiticosis) are widely known, but the real killer – alviolitis – was unknown in this country until around 20 years ago when my
late husband's name appeared in The Lancet as the first person to be diagnosed in England with this disease (bearing tuberculosis symptoms).

For several years, all the tests for TB had proved negative until Killingbeck hospital in Leeds brought in some experts from abroad.

They soon discovered my husband's father kept pigeons and we had a great aviary, full of budgerigars.

Problem solved, they said: "TB symptoms" – pigeon and budgerigar disease – alviolitis.