Refreshed by common sense

HOW refreshing to read Elizabeth Peacock’s essay (Yorkshire Post, February 1). Common sense indeed. I once had the pleasure of meeting her. She had the patience to listen and to talk to anyone and everyone, and her “Yorkshireness” as always at the forefront of all that she was doing.

What a pity we can’t clone her, and inject her common sense into our elected leaders.

Bank shock

From: N Stanley Smith OBE, Cleaside Avenue, South Shields.

I WAS shocked to read (Yorkshire Post, February 3) the announcement by Lloyds Banking Group of a further provision of £1.8bn for losses in respect of PPI policies taking its losses to nearly £10bn. I think we should be advised when the directors were first told of these further losses, why it has taken so long to discover these losses and how long have they been concealed from the shareholders and the Stock Exchange?

Elocution lesson

From: Brian H Sheridan, Redmires Road. Sheffield.

LIKE Ken Cooke (Yorkshire Post, February 1), I always pronounce “harass” and “harassment” with the stress on the first syllable. At my school an English teacher who gave elocution lessons insisted “controversy” should be pronounced not with the emphasis on the middle syllable but with equal stress on all four syllables. ”Forehead” should be pronounced “forredd”, “often” should be “offn”, “towards” should be “tords” and “again” should be “agenn”.