Shameful way to treat elderly

Thank you to Jayne Dowle (Yorkshire Post, February 17) for highlighting the shameful treatment of the elderly in our hospitals. I still find it difficult to talk about and to come to terms with the lack of care and subsequent death of my dear mother in hospital in 2004. I remember saying to one nurse: “She may be a little old lady to you, but she is my mother and well loved by her family.”

I know from more recent experience that the care of older people still needs to be addressed. These elderly people haven’t always been old, have probably led vibrant, fullfilling lives and deserve our respect.

We, too, are all getting older and as Jayne says we should all treat others as we would wish to be treated ourselves or “Love your neighbour as you would love yourself”.

Boat at risk

From: D.H. Evans, Queensgate, Beverley.

THANK you for running that extremely interesting piece about the last Bridlington Coble (Yorkshire Post, February 19), and for highlighting the risks to this boat making it through to its centenary next year.

I was sad to read about the uncertainties of raising enough money to pay for repairs. This is exactly the kind of deserving situation into which the Heritage Lottery Fund ought to have been able to immediately step. Sadly, the bureaucratic procedures of the HLF are such that many small societies are unable to wade their way through the labyrinthine hurdles to ever qualify for a grant.

Dry land

From: Michael Storey, Healey Wood Road, Brighouse.

I AM very pleased to inform Brian Haigh that “Humber” is a river which separates Yorkshire from Lincolnshire, or it was when I was at school (Yorkshire Post, February 19). I haven’t heard that it had dried up but, like Mr Haigh, was wondering if it had and had been replaced by an area of land.

Sadly the media sometimes seems to think that “Humber” is a place.