General was extraordinary man

Your article mentioned that Havelock was not a typical Imperial British Commander of the time. May I add a further fact in this connection: Hevelock was a Baptist!

The great Baptist missionary William Carey (acknowledged widely as the 'Father of Modern Missions') had landed in India in 1793 and eventually established a church and college in Serampore.

One of Carey's colleagues was Dr Joshua Marshman (a teacher). Mrs Hannah Marshman was an able, intelligent and resourceful woman. Havelock married a daughter of the Marshmans.

He was baptised as a believer is Serampore in 1830. This step must have demanded a great deal of courage when officers in the British Army would have been Anglican, even if nominally.

In the Baptist College in Oxford University where I served as a tutor for 22 years, there was a full-length portrait of Havelock on the stairway up to the library near my room. I must have seen it thousands of times in my time as a tutor!

I find myself in complete agreement with your admirable leading article. Those who ignore or denigrate our past history do well to ponder those wise words - those who ignore their past end up by having no future.

Reverend Doctor J E Morgan-Wynne

The Manse,

6 Kings Road,

Ilkley.

Hospital relief

SIR, I am delighted that the Leeds Health Authority Board voted unanimously to accept the Outline Business Plan and particularly the recommendation that the hospital should be built on the current site in Otley.

The most important thing now is that the matter remains settled and progress towards the new hospital continues at a faster rate.

I hope that the authority will quickly find a PFI Partner for this excellent venture. Many of the people that I have met in Otley have raised the issue of the slowness of the process and the ongoing uncertainty as a concern and I know that they will be relieved to be keeping the Wharfedale Hospital where it is.

As to an alternative site, it would be an act of enormous cruelty if the Health Authority were to change its mind at this stage.

You cannot go on raising and then dashing people's hopes in that way. I am convinced that the current site offers the best solution for the area and I am confident that any PFI Partner will agree.

Adam Pritchard

Conservative Prospective

Parliamentary Candidate for

Leeds NW,

460A Roundhay Road,

Leeds, LS8 2HU.

Support fuel fight

SIR, - Three and a half years after he was elected and the twenty days before the deadline set by the fuel tax campaigners, Blair made his first speech on the 'environment'.

Is this a coincidence and is it sincere? The answer to both is a resounding no. As with all things, New Labour this is a carefully calculated piece of manipulative propaganda to brainwash the public and split the protest. We have a mass of hypocritical propaganda where Blair says one thing to the public and another to capitalists. If ever there was a two-faced politician, he is it.

Not long ago he was telling OPEC to increase oil production to bring down the price so we could use more fuel and now he talks of expanding renewable energy sources but puts up totally inadequate funds to back his statements. This is cynical manipulation of the worse kind.

The Government spin machine is up and running at full speed and we can expect much more of this as the fuel deadline draws nearer. Don't be fooled by Blair and his Tory cronies.

If you want democracy, stand up and fight for it. Whether you are a car or public transport user, or a shopper, this affects you. This is a direct tax which hits the poor the hardest and have had their overall taxes increased from 35 per cent to over 40 per cent since New Tory Labour came into power.

Please continue to support the fuel campaign and show Blair dictatorships will not be tolerated.

MALCOLM NAYLOR

21 Grange View,

Otley.

Memories

SIR, - I was sorry to read of the death of Bobbo the Clown (Alfred Robinson) who entertained so many people, especially children.

When I was one of the first pupils of Newall School in the top class, he must have been one of the younger ones. At that time, another Robinson was a magician and he had a shop at the bottom of Billams Hill and Farnley Lane, Otley.

I was only at the new school for a year and left to go to the C of E school in Cross Green. Newall was a delightful building, big windows facing south painted with cream and green, such a comparison with Otley with its dark rooms and the nearby leather works.

Thanks to the wonderful teachers, it was back to the brightness at the grammar school in a couple of years.

As a volunteer worker at Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge, I still see an old classmate from Newall School. Eileen Burgess (nee Rhodes) is the secretary. I was also reminded of my schooldays by the article about Myrle Boyington (Across the Years).

As new school clothes became unavailable during the war, we were able to buy 'hand-me-downs' and I was honoured to get Myrle's sport shorts, hoping her prowess might rub off, but no such luck.

This year, I completed 50 years on the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. I served my apprenticeship with Fairfax Fearnley in Manor Square, part of which is now an opticians. I was there when the NHS started.

We were supposed to finish at 7.30pm but it was often 8pm before the last prescription was dispensed. Luckily, I got two nights off to study.

It was a fascinating place to work and I got 10s a week. When qualified, I had a wonderful boss at Scotts in Brook Street, Ilkley, until I married and left Yorkshire.

When we retired we came back to Yorkshire and wondered however we found time to work as we have been in the Inland Waterways Association for 30 years preserving and restoring canals and cruising on our narrowboat in warmer months and working at Bolton Abbey Station in the colder ones.

I was reminded by the picture of the Market Place in Otley in last week's paper of how proud my late father, Clifford Houseman, was of the fact that he was born in the Market Place in 1903 when his parents ran the Leeds House.

Now that Otley is trying to attract visitors, may I say how horrible I find the ladies' toilets in Orchard Gate. I realise that they are vandal proof, but how dreadful those cold steel rims are for children and the elderly to sit on. Surely, an alternative could be found as this is no way to attract families.

In view of the expansion of the town, I was surprised to see that Otley Library is still so small, that no progress has been made on a decent swimming pool and that the hospital is being run down. It seems that being part of Leeds has not been an advantage to my home town.

Cecily D Helliwell (Mrs)

formerly Houseman

26 Grange Road,

Dacre Banks,

Harrogate.

Never forget

A 78-year-old woman has sent us this poem for publication. It was written during World War Two.

She has asked to remain anonymous and we agree to the request in these circumstances so we can share her work with you in the days before Remembrance Sunday.

SIR, God bless the boys in khaki, in navy and in blue,

And all the rest who did their best for liberty and you,

Salute the brave, so loyal, who died to make us free,

Let us rejoice and sing this song a song of victory,

The Red Cross too, we all look up to you,

You done your part right up from the start loyal and true,

We won't forget the women, who helped to fight the foe,

God bless you all including boys who sleep where the poppys grow.