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Saturday's Letters: We must be allowed to choose our time of death
MY father was in hospital for five weeks with life threatening conditions. The consultant was shown his living will, now known as final directive, and begged by his family not to prolong his very evident distress and suffering.
During that time, my father was nursed and medicated to try to ensure his recovery. In his early deep delirium, he pulled out his catheter causing damage to himself.
He was treated to stop bleeding which caused a large clot to form in his thigh that could have killed him.
He was in constant discomfort and pain, suffered indignity and distress day after day as he deteriorated. At first he fought nurses then begged them not to touch him.
On this 37th day in hospital, still conscious and rational, we found him like a dying animal, his thin body huddled in bed, quietly moaning and writhing and pulling the bedclothes over his head and face.
Had this been an animal, I would have been prosecuted for cruelty.
This wonderful old man was totally blind and 101 years old.
What, for pity's sake, are we doing?
Our lives should be our own. It is time for us to be given the right to choose our time of dying. How dare others presume to interfere in what should be our right.
From: June Pope, New Popplewell Lane, Scholes, Cleckheaton.
Pandering to middle-class parents
John G Davies, Alma Terrace, East Morton, Keighley.
BILL Carmichael is wrong on two counts: firstly, his lack of belief in more effective teaching or clever pupils is based on simple prejudice (Yorkshire Post, August 21).
In order to reach any particular level, a pupil has to meet set criteria, rather than in the past when the "pass mark" moved to permit only a set percentage of pupils to "pass".
So just as the four-minute mile was an elite target back in the 1950s, nowadays it is done frequently by relatively ordinary athletes.
He is correct that the real problem of British education is the other end of the scale, but offering apprenticeships, which were dropped by British industry in a short-sighted effort to save money, to individuals who lack the basic skills to be able to make any real progress, is pointless.
Rather than an educational problem, the NEET (not in education, employment or training) is a complex sociological issue which needs a range of measures to deal with it.
Some of these measures are involved in programmes like Surestart. Unfortunately, these issues are not vote winners, whereas pandering to the worries of aspiring middle-class parents is an election issue.
Advice of an old soldier
From: LRG Sayer, Broadgate Crescent, Almondbury, Huddersfield.
I WAS very interested in Peter Bradley's letter (Yorkshire Post, August 24). My father, a regular soldier, served in the North West Frontier at the beginning of the last century, that is shortly after the end of the Second Afghan War.
His philosophy, and that of his comrades, was that you didn't monkey with Afghans. Leave them alone and they left you alone, interfere with them and you got more than you bargained for.
The German visitor's comment on seeing the memorial to the men of the East Yorks in Beverley Minster was so true. Politicians do not learn from history, indeed one wonders if they are even aware of it.
A further comment of my father's: If politicians had to fight wars, then there would not be any.
Clough a son of Yorkshire
From: Graham Lawton, Snaizeholme, Hawes.
I AM writing to express my disappointment with the Magazine article interview with David Sharrod (Yorkshire Post, August 15).
To the question: "Who is the Yorkshire person you most admire?", he answers, "Brian Clough. OK, he was from Middlesbrough, but can you allow me to push the boundaries just a little".
Mr Sharrod admits to coming from Derbyshire, so I accept that he knows nowt, but I would have thought the journalist may have known that Brian was a proud Yorkshireman.
Brian was born in Middlesbrough in 1935. That's Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire, where Yorkshire played cricket at Acklam Park and Middlesbrough versus Sheffield United was a Yorkshire derby.
Your columnist, Bernard Ingham, has written a book entitled Yorkshire Greats: The county's fifty finest. On page 206 of that book appears Brian Clough.
Real price of cheap clothes
From: Beryl Armistead, Green Park Drive, Cayton Village, Scarborough.
WHEN will decent people realise (I know some do) that demanding cheap clothing, such as one prominent Hull firm supplies, is sold on the backs of women and children overseas who work long hours, in appalling conditions in sweat shops, for a few pence a week?
They cannot afford clothes or food for themselves, let alone schooling, while many here in the affluent West have all that and more yet demand to be clothed for a mere pittance. It disgusts me and others I know.
This was why Fairtrade was set up some years ago and, thanks to a great many folk throughout the UK it is making a vast difference to the live of many in Third World countries, but there is still a long way to go.
Holiday excitement
From: JW Smith, Sutton-on-Sea, Mablethorpe.
READING the letters pages it is clear that some sections of the Press have much to answer for. I refer to reports about the Parliamentary recess.
Do people really believe this is the first time a Prime Minister and his Cabinet have taken a summer break?
I heard George Osborne say on radio that the entire Cabinet was on holiday, something he knows, or at least should know, to be untrue. Recently, we have heard from Alan Johnson, David Miliband, Hilary Benn, Andy Burnham and Lord Mandelson.
For as long as I can remember, previous administrations, both Conservatives and Labour, had ensured Cabinet members spent their holidays leaving someone "minding the shop".
Some correspondents are critical of unelected members of the House of Lords, in particular Lord Mandelson; but there have always been peers both in government and opposition.
Blinkered mantra of the pro-hunting lobby
From: Penny Little, Back Way, Great Haseley, Oxfordshire.
THE picture painted by RC Dales (Yorkshire Post, August 17) is preposterous, conjuring up images of strong-jawed huntsmen just "doing their duty" (unlike others, who fail in this duty as they are too "immersed in their affairs"), nobly setting out to cull a "savage predator", leaving behind them a much strengthened population of foxes, with all the weedy ones, (with "the necessary aid of dogs") done away with.
This is so risible, that I almost thought it might be a deliberate joke, but then I realised it really was just another hunt apologist's ultra-sanitised version of what hunting is
all about.
I think we all know, without RC Dales telling us, that there are predators in nature, but they are engaged in a daily challenge called survival.
RC Dales repeats the blinkered, speciest mantra that wild animals cannot have "human sensations". He even tries to claim a hunted animal –"if such a prey has sensations" – would just feel "excitement".
How very, very convenient is the philosophy of RC Dales. It brands predators as nasty and evil, it strips them of any ability to feel sensation, it crowns recreational bloodsports with an aura of righteousness, and it equips its followers with such a desire to patronise that they cannot see their own self-serving, despicable ignorance.
From: Pat Thomson, Kelly Street, Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire.
ONCE again, we have a deluge of letters from both sides in the fox hunting debate, both pro and anti, as in the letter from Phyllis Capstick (Yorkshire Post, August 11) which is pro-hunting as usual. She is, of course, entitled to her own opinions, but may be she could enlighten me as to where the fox is listed as vermin specifically.
In any English dictionary or thesaurus – and I have searched through my own copies and those in the local libraries – it is not there.
What I did find was this: "The term vermin is also used as an extremely pejorative characterisation of a particular class or group of people, a inferior and subhuman, and often considered social parasites."
Charity does not begin at home
From: Alan W Briglin, Sefton Street, Hull.
IT IS generally accepted abroad that Americans are a very generous people but when I see the fierce opposition to President Obama's ides of bringing healthcare to all American citizens, I have my doubts.
America is the richest country in the world, yet more than 40 million citizens are without health cover.
It seems charity does not begin at home in the US.
When justice and mercy meet
From: Malcolm Healey, Oakdene Close, Pudsey, Leeds.
WITH regard to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, please don't blame the Americans
We must remember that the justice system in the United States incorporates hanging, lethal injection, and electrocution, plus limitless imprisonment. How can we expect them to understand justice tempered with mercy and compassion?
Congratulations to the Scottish Justice Minister for his initial decision, demonstration of a civilised approach to justice, and subsequent courage in standing his ground.
Sabotage squad
From: Pat Rattigan, Quarry Bank Road, Chesterfield.
I DO hope that Barrie Frost (Yorkshire Post, August 14) is not suggesting that the crass incompetence, now endemic within Parliament, the medical trade, the bureaucracy, the legal system, etc is not solely responsible for the ongoing national chaos and shambles.
He seems to be pointing at a specially-trained group who have been put into places of power and influence to sabotage British life. Who would do such a thing?
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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