County Hall does have an economic role

IT is surprising that there has been no response to the letter from RC Dales (Yorkshire Post, September 19).

This drew attention to the decline in importance of our county town, Northallerton, and the lack of influence of MPs and councils.

After this we see that county police officers are thinking of moving the headquarters to Thirsk.

This is not a decision which should be made by them. They are employed by the community and the time has come for economies to be maximised.

Mr Dales referred to the NYCC’s extravagance, having so many officials instead of one central site. The County Hall and its whole site has enough space for every NYCC organisation, especially if multi-storeys replace any single-storey buildings. The county council and the police should be told to reorganise accordingly.

When officers are scattered about the county this causes more traffic on the roads, more postage and letter-writing, and less ability to economise by policing services.

Wooden pronunciation

From: Michael Booth, The Birches, Bramhope.

IT gave me great pleasure to hear Paul Hudson, the BBC weatherman, correcting, most vehemently, his colleagues on Look North regarding the pronunciation of the village name “Harewood”.

When I was at school in the 1940s, I was always told to listen to the BBC announcers for the correct pronunciation of our language.

Having been brought up nearby I can well remember the village being pronounced as spelled, as the big brown rabbit-like animal with long back legs and black tips to its lugs is not a Har, and the village certainly not “Harwood”.

We already have one of that spelling/pronunciation near Scarborough – Harwood Dale.

About 10 years ago for some unknown reason, the BBC’s announcers/presenters dropped the “E”, a habit which I and many others find most annoying.

I can only put it down to the influx of Londoners at Look North doing a bit of social climbing and moving up to work in Yorkshire. They bring some strange pronunciation with them – a perfectly simple road down there named Pall Mall which they call Pal Mal. I wonder, do they, when speaking to their young, tell them that Humpty Dumpty fell off a wal?

From: William Snowden, Dobrudden Park, Baildon Moor, Baildon.

KEN Cooke’s “factual observations” (Yorkshire Post, October 1) were erroneous.

Contrary to his dogmatic assertions, bracken is indeed a fern: Pteridium aquilinum is a large fern with finely divided fronds – and most attractive.

The word “bracken” is derived from the Middle English, northern dialect word “braken” which, in turn, was derived from the Old Norse word “brakni”.

Many species of our native flora (and fauna) are potentially poisonous. But if ferns are so hazardous to health, then how on earth have he, I and others survived “ranging over Ilkley Moor for over half a century”? And certainly, in my case, contentedly amongst the ferns!

His differentiation between herbicides and insecticides was superfluous (the clue is in the name!), but both are poisonous chemical compounds.

Mr Cooke may be complacently content to risk the cumulative effects of regularly consuming a cocktail of agro-chemicals, but I am not. I eat natural, free-range and organic food.

From: Jack Brown, Lamb Lane, Monk Bretton, Barnsley.

ALL Englishmen surely love a chance to throw stones at American culture. We should, however, ensure that we are not throwing from a glass house as does Jayne Dawson (Yorkshire Post, September 27) with the “American craze” of Halloween.

One of Christianity’s most successful tactics was supplanting of pagan feasts with its own; Christmas and Easter being the most obvious. Frazer’s Golden Bough is replete with accounts of European fire rituals and Halloween (eve of All Saints Day) supplanted Samhain, the Celtic year end.

We, unfortunately, are saddled with November 4 (Mischievous Night) and November 5 because of a relatively minor incident; a Roman Catholic attempt to assassinate an Anglican King.

It is a measure of the atavistsic power of fire rituals that this celebration of religious hatred has survived so long. The Christian churches of Britain should surely be campaigning to get back in step with our Euro-American
kin.

From: Dr Robert Heys, Bar Lane, Ripponden, Sowerby Bridge.

CHARLES Brown’s article concerning the dangers of the anti-malarial drug Mefloquine (Larium), “Malaria medicine can make soldiers psychotic” (Yorkshire Post, September 28), has prompted me to review recent medical publications regarding this product.

My study confirms the serious side-effects detailed, but fails to confirm Colonel Croft’s claim that there are “other alternatives (to Mefloquine) that are safer and just as effective”, which, as reflected in your article, does not seem to be an opinion shared by medical experts.

In such circumstances it seems reasonable that services personnel (and others) bound for malarial regions should have these facts explained, and be given the choice of Mefloquine or another, albeit possibly less effective, anti-malarial prophylactive.

Meanwhile high priority should surely be given to research developing a drug as potent or more so in this regard as Mefloquine, but without its side-effects.