Letters to the Editor

SIR - May I urge all parents to think carefully before buying toy guns for young children this Christmas?

A mark of respect for the recent tragic shooting let us all impress upon our children that guns kill people.

It would also be a wonderful gesture of peace if all toy shops and market-stall-holders withdrew all replica guns from their stock.

The Early Learning Centre on Market Street has always had a policy of never stocking negative and violent toys, but instead encourages young children to learn through creative activity.

At the risk of being branded a crank, I always stop and tell any child I see brandishing a toy gun, that they are very bad things!

A glare from a mum is not too bad as long as the message is planted in a child's mind.

Sheila Ognissanti, King's Road, Bradford.

Tagging tragedies

SIR - Mr Willis (T&A, December 1) is unhappy that I want to stop electronic tagging and make prisoners serve their sentences in full.

Perhaps he would not be quite so complacent about tagging if he had been one of the 6,700 people who have been victims at the hands of someone out of prison on tagging since it was introduced in 1998.

And perhaps he would like to tell the family of the jeweller murdered in Nottingham by someone on a tag how "successful" the scheme is.

He asks where the extra prisons would go and how much I would increase his taxes to pay for them. My policy would require an extra five or six prisons, according to the Home Office.

Surely even this incompetent government is capable of finding that number of sites, given their top priority should be the protection of its people.

As for his taxes, Mr Willis may be aware that I wish us to withdraw from the European Union. The billions of pounds we would save in membership fees alone would pay for these prisons and leave enough change to cut taxes as well.

Philip Davies MP, Hartlington Court, Baildon.

In lieu of cards...

Sir - It's that time of the year again, when everyone frantically shops till they drop and writes around 30 to 40 Christmas cards to friends, relatives and neighbours.

And when all is done, we sit down and wonder if we have missed anyone out, waiting for a card to come through the post from someone we may have forgotten.

I solved this problem for myself five years ago. Instead of sending out Christmas cards, I donate £10 to my favourite charity, the NSPCC.

It's wonderfully rewarding, 100 times less stressful and is helping children who are not as fortunate.

I do not have a problem with this but unfortunately, some of my friends and relatives do make comments like: "I can't understand why you do not send cards, I love doing it", etc.

I do not want to offend anyone, but I can join in and wish my friends, neighbours and relatives a verbal greeting. As for the number of cards which people receive, one fewer from me should not make a difference, but I hope my £10 does to the NSPCC and I hope people who read this and decide to follow suit.

Mary Moorhouse, Flaxen Court, Wibsey Bank, Bradford.

Restore the bins

SIR - On a recent visit to St Luke's Hospital I noticed lots of rubbish lying around.

On asking a member of staff I was told that now the hospital has introduced its 'smoke-free zone' policy - which means that there is nowhere for patients or staff to have a smoke - all the bins have been removed.

There is a man going around all day picking up rubbish. My appointment was early in the morning and the poor man obviously had not started work.

The area around the newer building looked like a rubbish dump. This is not the image the hospital should put forward to the public.

Come on, you health authority bosses, put some of the bins back if only to stop the beer cans and pizza boxes being thrown all over the car park.

Diane Tasker, Reevylands Drive, Wibsey.

Low Moor history

SIR - At the University of Teesside, we have a small group researching historical wrought irons.

As well as the metallurgy, we are interested in the background to some of the artefacts which have come from as far away as Uruguay and Australia.

Often these point back to Low Moor or Bowling Iron Works. Having formerly lived in Bradford, passing the former ironworks sites daily, I assumed their historical significance was well documented.

With some few readily-available exceptions, especially with respect to Low Moor, I now know this is not the case.

Wrought iron from Low Moor was the principal engineering material of the industrial revolution. It was specified for the most exacting applications which underpinned Victorian engineering.

If Bradford should ever take its rightful place in the annals of industrial history, at least in parity with wool, it should be as the home of Low Moor iron.

As much in tribute to the thousands who laboured there to be able to preserve the story of Low Moor, we would be pleased if readers could supply us with any information or documentation about the company and its working practices.

Dr Paul Shelton, School of Science and Technology, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough TS1 3BA

Bus benefits

SIR - In response to Derek Beck's bus lane query (T&A, December 2), bus lanes carry as many people as two lanes of cars. This is a key benefit, along with much better bus reliability.

Usually bus lanes are only appropriate for buses and bicycles, which are efficient users of road space. In some special local circumstances taxis should be allowed.

Other variants are multi-occupancy vehicles (MOV lanes) and 'no car' lanes which allow buses and lorries, the latter used where freight delivery is otherwise too difficult. With these variants there can be safety issues, especially for cyclists.

Alec Suchi (T&A, December 2) is right about some of the advantages of tram and rail which are more energy efficient and utilise staff and road space even better than buses.

However, he is too pessimistic about buses. In Airedale and on Dalesbus 25 per cent of bus users are motorists.

In cities with well-established bus policies, motorists form a substantial majority of bus users, while many choose to give up car usage entirely.

Ray Wilkes, Co-ordinator, Yorkshire & Humber Transport Roundtable, Tower Road, Shipley.

Nonsense figures

SIR - I gave up commenting on educational matters when Mrs Thatcher was PM but I am very tempted by the recent league tables for primary schools (T&A December 2).

It's not the lesson bits that really concern me but the nonsense of ranking primary schools in a truancy table.

Truancy is an inappropriate term for youngsters as young as four and the reference, if needed, should be to unauthorised absence.

This is normally the responsibility of parents who forget to let the school know, or wilfully keep the children at home for a variety of reasons.

It's not the bike-shed-smoking, park-lurking, shoplifting, amusement-arcade truancy that can be more common in teenage years.

The figures presented tell little about the school but more about the parents of the children who attend only part of the time.

Keith Thomson, Heights Lane, Bradford.

Do your jobs...

SIR - In regard to the letter by Alan O'Day Scott headlined "What hypocrisy" (T&A, November 28), I was rather amused by the comment Councillor Greenwood made regarding Mr Davies MP and the interests of his constituents.

Couns Greenwood, Thornton and Miller have represented Wrose and Windhill for the last two years yet have done nothing for the voters.

Coun Thornton seems to concentrate of education, Coun Miller on Bolton Woods, but Coun Greenwood?

So to call Mr Davies is in my opinion not worthy of comment.

Come on, you so-called councillors for Wrose, do something for the people who live there, especially the residents of Bolton Hall Road or as I call it a subsidiary of the M1 motorway.

Michael Breen, Bolton Hall Road, Wrose.