Monday's letters: Hospitable Yorkshire puts itself on the map

IT is with delight and pride that I note that Yorkshire has enjoyed a record number of visitors and holidaymakers this year (Yorkshire Post,

August 25).

These figures come as no surprise to me. I have long been advocating Yorkshire as the perfect holiday destination to my European friends and colleagues.

We have got a fantastic record of providing wonderful holidays for visitors both to the coast and the Yorkshire Dales, and indeed to our

major towns and cities which are attractions in their own right.

Yorkshire is well-known for its hospitality so if people are not going to go abroad there is no better place to visit.

From: John Richardson, Leathley, Otley.

I AM getting a bit fed up with Welcome To Yorkshire seemingly taking the credit for the rise in Yorkshire tourism and, therefore, justifying their existence. The real credit must go to entrepreneurial business men and women of Yorkshire who have gambled with their own money to provide whatever the tourist requires from brilliant food and accommodation to wonderfully managed countryside – and attractions, high-class shops and, of course, the people of Yorkshire.

I don't think its sponsorship ventures, like The Railway Children at Waterloo Station, is a prudent way to spend our money. Some of the businesses I have mentioned would be really grateful for a small portion of that money.

Question of morality over drug decision

From: A Foster, Moor Lane, Addingham, West Yorkshire.

WHAT can be said about the moral standards of a nation where a government department decides that a cancer treatment by the NHS using a drug costing 20,000 a year does not justify the cost (Yorkshire Post, August 25)?

This following a period when politicians, receiving large salaries, were claiming vast expenses and incompetent bureaucrats were receiving exorbitant salaries, with bonuses for making a mess of government schemes also up to and beyond 200,000 a year.

Add to this the billions of pounds of taxpayers' money squandered on futile computer systems – doomed to failure from the start.

Add to this the money given to banks which failed due to personal greed and we have

a state of affairs that would have been unbelievable 65 years ago.

Lorry toll of accidents

From: Andrew Bullivant, Gristhorpe, Filey, North Yorkshire.

I HAVE just watched a recording of Police Camera Action, all about lorry drivers. As a HGV driver myself, I feel the programme-makers missed a chance to save lives by educating car drivers to respect the size and rolling mass of a lorry and not to place themselves in danger. No real mention was made regarding the blind spots on a lorry or the room required to manoeuvre an articulated lorry around a corner or junction. Every day we have "idiots" who try to slide down the inside of a lorry turning left, or cars that cut in in front off us, leaving us with no braking distance.

There are also cars or vans that come tanking down slip roads expecting us to pull over to let them in and giving no thought to the poor devil who is overtaking us and liable to be pushed through the barriers should we get forced across – these are the real reasons that lorries are involved in so many accidents.

Musical memories

From: Margaret Anderson, Lincroft Crescent, Bramley, Leeds.

THE other night, we tuned in as usual to Radio York to listen to Frank Wappat and sit back and listen. We learned that following a second stroke three months ago that has affected his speech he took the decision last week to retire from broadcasting. Frank has been in local broadcasting, for 40 years. His knowledge of pre-1960 records and personalities is phenomenal.

Through his programmes over the years I have loved to listen to Al Bowly, Chick Henderson, Sam Brown and numerous bands, especially

the dance bands like Billy Ternent, all long before my teenage years.

I felt it should be put on record the time that Frank has spent with the help of Susan, his wife, the enjoyment that he brought firstly on Monday evenings, then on Sundays to thousands of listeners that he always regarded as friends and family.

I am sure his fans in West Yorkshire wish to join us in sending our very best wishes for the future and a big thank you for the years that we have shared.

Suitable punishment

From: David Woosnam, Woodrow Park, Grimsby.

MOST readers will now have seen the video clip of the cat that was placed in a wheelie bin (Yorkshire Post, August 26). The punishment for this woman should not be prison, but an equivalent to the stocks of old.

I reckon that she should endure just two minutes (not the cat's 15 hours) placed upside down in a smelly dustbin. The wheelie-bin should be in the centre of a public square, and so placed as to be incapable of falling to a more acceptable horizontal position (should she struggle).

The frightening thing now is that yobs will try to emulate her actions.

A cruel possibility

From: Aled Jones, Mount Crescent, Bridlington.

I WAS both saddened and furious to read that the Government has said it will allow a free motion in Parliament which could lead to a return to the cruelty of hunting wild animals with packs of dogs – despite the

fact that a massive majority of the public support the 2004 ban.

If you accept that sentient animals have rights, killing foxes, deer and hare in "sport" is just kinky in the extreme. Without a shadow

of doubt, tormenting defenceless animals for fun is an activity that must never be allowed to rear its ugly head again in our beautiful countryside.

It beggars belief that, just six years after the passing of the Hunting Act, we could be stepping back into barbarism, but once again expediency rules okay, which is why the Tories and Liberal Democrats have gleefully jumped into bed together.

The moral of this story: "Never mind what ordinary, decent people want–let's pander to the bloodthirsty few."

A cruel disease and an uncaring doctor's diagnosis

From: K Walker, Scarborough.

YOUR article on muscular dystrophy (Yorkshire Post, August 25) brought back memories of my father. He contracted motor neurone disease when I was 17.

Motor neurone is a terrible and cruel condition and it took quite some time, as well as scans of his brain, before he was finally told.

My father lay in a hospital bed with my mother by his side when the doctor came to see them and very callously said: "You have motor neurone disease. There is no cure and nothing we can do so you may as well go home."

My father could no longer speak as well as other complications as a result of the disease and so he was left with his own thoughts as the condition does not affect the brain.

My mother and father were proud people so she immediately brought him home and looked after him before he sadly passed away three-and-a-half years later in 1989, aged 54.

Support and help were very limited 24 years ago with such a condition.

I cannot help but think after reading your article that things have not changed all that much in some sectors of the NHS.