Small payments to solve crisis

SURELY it is reasonable that we all should help to resolve the economic crisis?

If those receiving free prescriptions, and that includes the police, Armed Forces and people with certain health conditions, paid £1 directly to the dispensing chemist (no admin costs to the government) for each item on their list, it would also reduce the stock of medication hoarded in many medicine cupboards and save the NHS millions.

Also, a £1 charge for each journey with a pass would curtail those who hop on buses for one or two stops simply because it is free.

Some difference

From: Ruthven Urquhart, High Hunsley, Cottingham.

WOULD someone please explain to the Meteorological Office the difference between showers (intermittent) and heavy rain (persistent) – ie deluge.

If they are ever in doubt, perhaps they could play safe and warn us of “unsettled weather”.

Flooded town

From: Peter Lansley, Cedar Drive, Chichester, West Sussex.

LET not Hebden Bridge be left wild and wet. Three weeks of flooding is more than enough to follow a drought. But don’t shed your tears and walk away. Even amidst fierce floods, the golden lotus can still be planted. And Acre Mill’s dust has long departed.

Poor poetry

From: Steven Dickinson, Beeston Road, Leeds.

I AGREE with David Craggs (Yorkshire Post, July 3), modern poetry is a load of cobblers. Modernists can’t write for toffee!