Remembering the seafarers

NO ONE in the UK lives more than 70 miles from the coast and 95 per cent of our imports come by ship. But gone are the days when most British families knew at least one person who worked at sea, either in a merchant vessel, on a fishing boat, or serving in the Royal Navy. As we celebrate Seafarers Awareness Week (June 25-July 1) I would like to ask your readers to “remember a seafarer” and post a story at www.myseafarer.org. Please send us your recollections as we campaign to remind everyone in this “Island Nation” about our seafarers and the work they do.

Olympic greed

From: Phil Hanson, Beechmount Close, Baildon, Shipley.

THE arrival of the Olympic gravy train is being preceded by a shameful grab for cash.

The Unite union should change its name to “Grab”, bus drivers grabbing the cash and even striking to hold the city to ransom – shameful or is it?

With the organisers, former athletes, the BBC employees and all the rest trousering fortunes, yes millions in some cases, who can blame the transport workers?

Britain’s Olympic games is a lavish example of elitism, roads segregated to allow express travel for the elite, replicating the recent Russian presidential inauguration, free hospitality , cars, and perks beyond peoples’ dreams this is a contrast with the economic hardships many face across the nation.

True benefit

From: Maxine Watt, Beeston, Leeds.

INSTEAD of planning to cut housing benefit for under-24s because working people may resent them receiving it (Yorkshire Post, June 25), why don’t David Cameron and his Government stop pursuing the failed economic policies which are making it so difficult for those young people to find and retain jobs in the first place?