Wednesday's Letters: Britain loses its great tradition of industry

Engineering, banks and building societies, carpet manufactures, cotton and woollen mills, sweets and confectionery, brick yards, building, even boat building – the list was endless. Where are the majority now?

When I left Halifax technical school in 1945, I immediately obtained employment, as did all school leavers at that time.

There wasn't a shortage of opportunities for teenagers. Higher education thrived in the grammar schools and first-class universities, not as today. It will not be long before we get "The University of Heckmondwike" where students will be able to read "tadpoles and frogs" or a similar subject. Could there be a possibility that further education is a ploy to get the unemployment figures down?

Great Britain was once envied around the globe for its excellence. Unfortunately, thanks to the weakness of successive governments, militant unions, greed, and an influx of immigrants the lifeblood of this country is being steadily drained.

This Government and the previous one tell us that we will get young people into work as apprentices and the like. My question is: "Doing what?"

If one purchases an article in this country it is invariably made in Europe, America, China, Japan, Korea or some other eastern country, so where are the employers who will employ these young people? It is obvious the pundits have no genuine answers.

From: P Clay, Rosthwaite, Saddleworth.

England fails in its attitude to education

From: Allan Davies, Heathfield Court, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire.

I WELCOME ME Wright's letter (Yorkshire Post, August 24). He confirms both what I had thought and also my own experience of defects in numeracy in further education.

When decimalisation was introduced, many FE colleges ran short courses on conversion of old to new currency. The Board of Trade provided kits of notes and coins, old and new.

Most of those attending preferred rote learning and it soon become clear that, all too often, there was little grasp of decimals and fractions. We ran similar courses when VAT was introduced. The same weaknesses remained and percentages were a closed book to many.

That ME Wright should tell of weaknesses in literacy also comes as no surprise. An education report in the 1950s recorded findings that many young lads who had been on "jankers" during the years of conscription, had not, in any real sense, disobeyed orders. They had simply been unable to read the printed word.

How we proceed, how we improve standards, I do not know. I have long thought that there is a very thick anti-educational streak in English society and that it extends far beyond those at the bottom of the pile. The utilitarian view, expressed in the few words "get your exams, and get a better job" (and how impoverished the language) may well be the source.

Benefits for community

From: Sue Hall, Chief Executive, West Yorkshire Probation Trust.

THE secret filming of offenders on Community Payback, screened by a recent ITV1 Tonight programme, claimed to expose the truth about community sentences.

However, the facts are that Community Payback is the most successful order available to the courts in terms of reducing re-offending, with 75 per cent of offenders not offending again within the following the two years. This compares very well to a short prison sentence, where only 29 per cent of offenders do not re-offend.

In 2009/10, West Yorkshire Probation Trust successfully supervised 440,276 hours of Community Payback. This provided more than 2.5m of community work that would not otherwise have been carried out.

We receive a constant stream of emails, letters and telephone calls from local communities, voluntary agencies and other grateful

beneficiaries, thanking our offenders for their hard work and praising their efforts.

The real truth is that the public want offenders to make reparation for their crimes and to see justice in action. Probation Trusts are dealing with more than a quarter of a million offenders at any one time in England and Wales. In the vast majority of cases, Community Payback delivers results for both the local communities and the offenders involved.

The missing Red Ensign

From: Lester May (Lieutenant-Commander RN), Reachview Close, Camden Town, London.

WHY did so few public buildings fly the Red Ensign in honour of

Merchant Navy Day last Friday?

Our island nation seems to have forgotten about the Merchant Navy and its important part in bringing food to our table and essential goods to our homes. Ships carry some 92 per cent of our international trade and 24 per cent of internal trade goes by coastal shipping, thus relieving our busy, crowded roads and railways of freight.

The UK population has become sea-blind. Early signs are that the

Defence Review will give us a still smaller Royal Navy, with fewer ships. This, of course, will mean that the Navy's important everyday task, in both peacetime and war, of policing the sea lanes, our nation's lifelines, will be harder to do.

Admiral Lord Nelson wrote in 1804: "I consider the protection of our trade the most essential service that can be performed."

We forget those wise words at our peril, for maritime piracy is a

reality and not just the stuff of Hollywood.

The lack of interest in flying the Red Ensign is a signal. It should be a wake-up call!

Services on rail route

From: Steve Butcher, Chief Operating Officer, Northern Rail.

I WOULD like to address some of the misconceptions raised by Stuart Moss (Yorkshire Post, September 2) about proposals for services on the Harrogate to Leeds line.

The Harrogate to Leeds line is one of the busiest on Northern Rail's network, which is why we have been working closely with our industry partners to improve service levels to meet the continued passenger demand.

The options being discussed will require improvements to the rail infrastructure, but potentially could allow trains to turn around at Horsforth.

This would allow us to run a higher frequency timetable calling at stations between Horsforth and Leeds, and also review the timings and stopping patterns of through services from Harrogate.

So far from looking to reduce service levels, we want to enhance the timetable. The proposals and infrastructure work required to achieve

this are subject to the Government's spending review and we will be keeping our passengers updated of progress.

Bumpy ride for villagers goes back many years

From: Charles (Phil) Tart, Main Street, Darley, Nidderdale.

I AM in many ways in sympathy with Mike Holt ("Disgrace of road repairs", Yorkshire Post, September 3). However the road problems in our village go back some 15 to 18 years.

During this period, new water and gas mains were installed, along with all the attendant side services to domestic premises along the main street, plus other excavations where drains were inadvertently cut.

When entering the east end of the village late at night, with my wife driving and myself in a semi-alcoholic doze in the passenger seat after a social evening out, I am rudely awakened by the crashing and banging of the car suspension as we proceed over undulations and pot holes mainly caused by the aforementioned works for a mile-and-a-half until we reach home at the western end (Darley is purported to be the longest village in England).

Peering at the road surface through shallow head lights gives one the impression that we are proceeding over a landscape that would not be unfamiliar on the moon or in a scene from The Planet of the Apes. All of the potholes were present before last winter so there can be no blame attributed to the frosts and snows of that period.

Protestations have been made to North Yorkshire County Council's highways department on several occasions, long before the current

cutbacks came into force, and all to no avail.

In my vocabulary, the phrase "Hell will freeze over first" has been replaced with "Darley Main Street will be re-surfaced first".

Bedtime story of over-charging

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Littlefield Lane, Grimsby.

DESPITE being a lifelong Socialist, I do feel sympathy with William Hague about the allegations made against him.

I've been on holidays where many people of the same sex have shared rooms together, simply because of the lack of single accommodation, and to avoid the single-room supplement that discriminates against those on their own.

I'm sure Hague was simply being a good Yorkshireman, looking to save money. Meanwhile, if it is deemed not right for same-sex individuals not in a relationship to share, then hoteliers must abolish this unfair supplement.

Labour pains

From: John Parker, Station Road, Baildon, Shipley, West Yorkshire.

I CAN hardly contain my excitement as we enter the final stages of the Labour leadership ballot. The four chinless toffs have carefully kept under the parapet, except for occasional statements to disown their parts in the previous government policies that have left us with a bankrupt broken Britain.

We have had an occasional belligerent outburst from Ed Balls, which shows who the nasty candidate is. The field is left for Diane Abbott to sweep into power. Good luck to her.

Blair apparent

From: Phyllis Capstick, Hellifield, Skipton, North Yorks.

TAKING into account the fact that Tony Blair has proved to be untrustworthy (for example, the stock reduction scheme of 2001, despicably and cruelly disguised as foot-and-mouth disease) shortly followed by the Iraq War (he obviously believed he could do as he

liked, without retribution), how can anyone believe what he writes to be a true version of events?

Should his memoirs be totally ignored, or treated as a work of fiction, created in an effort to appease his dreadful actions?

Sitting target

From: DM Loxley, Hartoft, Pickering, North Yorkshire.

I HAVE just read of a civil servant suing his department for 300,000 as a result of "falling off his chair". Considering his employment and position, and from my personal knowledge, his "newly issued chair" could have been his own choice.

Anyone sufficiently incompetent as to not be able to sit on a chair should not be in employment but rather in a maintained and secure care establishment. A question of litigious compensation should not arise.