SIR - I was very interested in the letter from Frank Morris in The Keighley News re non meat eaters,with all due respect I did not know shoeing horses for years gave you extra knowledge of food requirements.

I have been doing heavy manual work for many years now, the last 10 being as a non-meat eater and I know how much better I feel in those last 10 years.

Maybe the person you spoke of might not want to be a bricklayer, plasterer or even a farrier.

All I say to people is why knock it if you have not tried it? By the way, the reason for me stopping eating meat was I got fed up with reading about farmers and others being in court for the mistreatment of animals. The last straw for me was a nasty case where a slaughterhouse was fined for cruelty.

George Watmough

Carr Lane, Shipley

SIR - Mr Frank Morris asserts that meat is an essential part of the diet for persons needing strength to do their work.

He then tells us that he shod eight or ten horses a day for thirty years.

He must surely have noticed that these gentle creatures get through a lot of hard graft in a lifetime, and they're all vegetarians.

I'm indebted to Henry David Thoreau, who made the same point almost two hundred years ago, when a farmer busy ploughing with the help of a pair of stout horses warned the philosopher his meatless diet would weaken him.

R E SWINDELLS

Spring Row

Denholme Road

Oxenhope

SIR - Frank Morris misses the point when he explains that eating meat has been good for him.

The earlier correspondent's message was nothing to do with how good -- or otherwise -- saturated fat is for the human body, but everything to do with conscience.

It boils down to what you think about animals; are they things or objects without feeling, put on the earth for the unrestricted use of man? Or are they sentient creatures, capable of feeling stress, pain and fear? If the latter, then conscience is bound to be troubled by the suffering forced on animals in markets and transportation, and the unimaginable horrors of the slaughterhouse.

Everyone must, of course, make their own judgment but I think that Robyn's point of view should not be undermined; instead she should be praised for her compassion.

Martyn Johnson

Lumbfoot, Stanbury

SIR - The people who are being brain washed are the people who have animals cut up for them to eat.

They have to eat meat because they have always eaten meat, just like demented clowns have always hunted foxes. If land was used for vegetables and not for animals for the slaughterhouse they would feed three times the number of people.

People are ignorant of the vast range of vegetarian food available and the superior taste. Nobody needs to eat meat nowadays, and if you do you can not be called an animal lover.

Meat eaters should be forced to see how animals are forced to live, the cruelty in transportation, and in death in the slaughterhouse. I cannot look in a butcher's shop, as it is full of bloodied pieces of cut up animals.

For a 12-year-old to set such an example is fantastic; and don't listen to people who are living in the past.

S MOSS

Thornhill Avenue

Oakworth

SIR - What a nice surprise this morning.

I received my council tax bill for 2006/7.

Isn't it so good of us nice people of the Keighley district, Ilkley, Bingley, Denholme and everywhere that is not Bradford to support the rebuilding and running of the great city of Bradford which is so many miles away.

To me, and probably many more of you who are reading this, think that the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (CoBMDC) do a fine job in keeping the City of Bradford running and its hard work re-labelling the fine outer towns as their own.

If I can pay any more to the CoBMDC to help the underprivileged of Bradford or help pay towards them putting up those lovely blue and orange signs stating that all our local facilities and historical places are now part of the CoBMDC.

Maybe we should ask Bradford if all of us nice wealthy people, who unfortunately don't live in the great city, but in the outside towns like Keighley, Silsden and Haworth, pay more to the CoBMDC to have this extra money spent keeping that city a showcase for the district.

I'm being sarcastic...

Christopher M Kelly

Haworth Rd, Lees

SIR - I note in today's KN that the number of staff employed by Airdale Primary Care Trust has increased by 19 per cent in the period April 2003 to December 2005.

I would be interested to learn the total annual wage bill for these people; the total number of extra people employed; and how many were: doctors, nurses, medical technicians, nursing assistants, managers, or clerical workers. It is, after all, the taxpayers money that is being spent.

JOHN HARMAN

Epworth Place, Oakworth