Be grateful for chaep rail fare

YOUR correspondent AB Emerson (Yorkshire Post, January 18) appears to blame the Government now that those over 60 lucky enough to hold a Metro pass have to pay, I think, half fare.

As a West Riding pensioner now living in North Yorkshire thanks to boundary changes, I have always had to pay full fare on all trains, including those in the Metro area, while friends I was travelling with paid just 50p.

Mr Emerson should be grateful that he still gets some rail concession from his local authority – I don’t. Incidentally, do Scottish passholders get concessions on our buses? The English don’t get concessions in Scotland.

Double standard

From: Andrew Mercer, Oxford Road, Guiseley.

IF the disgraced banker Fred Goodwin is not stripped of his knighthood for his financial recklessness at the now state-run RBS, the case for Lester Piggott having his OBE reinstated becomes overwhelming.

He lost this after being jailed for tax evasion over a sum that was tiny in comparision to the amount that Goodwin’s actions cost the country. The double standards are, frankly, overwhelming. For, while Piggott lost his OBE and any chance of a knighthood, Jeffrey Archer retained his peerage – despite being jailed for perjury.

Un-Christian

From: Dave Long, Horsforth, Leeds.

ALTHOUGH a lifelong atheist, I am appalled by the total lack of charity, Christian or otherwise, shown by the Catholic Church in not allowing Denum Ellarby, who has Down’s Syndrome, to attend his first Holy Communion with his classmates (Yorkshire Post, January 20). After all, Jesus Christ said, according to the Gospels: “Suffer little children to come unto me”. Perhaps they should find some other way rather than via the Catholic Church!