The Sunday Mail - 01.09.2019

letter of the week

It was refreshing to read in

last week’s Mail on Sunday

that Ed Sheeran admits

he gets anxious socially

and, to help with this,

surrounds himself with

four old schoolmates,

whom he employs.

It can only be good for

him that he has

longstanding

friends to keep him

grounded, given

all the success that

he has enjoyed.

David Courtney,

Weston-super-Mare

I think it says

something nice about

Ed Sheeran that he

keeps his old mates

really close, and that

he has not junked

them, as so many

celebs do.

And of course his

wife, Cherry Seaborn,

was his childhood

sweetheart – he’s also

‘keeping it real’ by

settling down with her.

Of course, there are

many cautionary tales

about putting your family

and friends on the payroll.

Elvis felt he had to keep on

working to maintain all

those on his books – and it

arguably helped kill him.

And MC Hammer

went bankrupt partly

because he was

supporting family

and friends.

But I think Ed is

probably wiser and

better advised than those

two. And he has made some

good choices about who to

surround himself with from

his very first flush of success.

M. John, London

Ed’s Fantastic Four

have big role to play

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Write to: The Letters Editor, The Mail on Sunday, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street,

letters London W8 5TS. Fax: 020 7937 3829 email: [email protected]

We should boycott

Brazil’s corned beef

The pictures of the devastation

across the Amazon caused by

the fires are heartbreaking. The

Brazilian government has

failed to act against the illegal

logging to clear land for cattle

and soya crops.

The rainforest, ‘the lungs of the

planet’, is critical to our way of

life and the pollution and threat to

wildlife are unacceptable.

Governments must continue to

put pressure on Brazil to act, but

why don’t individuals stop buying

corned beef and soya products

from Brazil, as falling demand

must surely make burning the

rainforest unprofitable?

Bob MacDougall,

Kippen, Stirlingshire

Back down, BBC!

What a gesture of goodwill it

would be for overfunded, overpaid

BBC executives to back down over

the abolition of free licences to the

over-75s and instead offer them a

50 per cent reduction in the fee.

ian Forrest, Lymm, Cheshire

11-plus was the fairest

Letters page remarks last week

that the 11-Plus exam wrote off

children who failed are rubbish.

The 11-Plus was the fairest way to

ensure all children reached their

true potential. Those who showed

academic ability were given the

opportunity, regardless of social

class or income, to fulfil that

potential. And those who failed

were also afforded the chance to

shine at other skills and go on to

lifelong jobs. That is true equality

of opportunity, not the clap-trap

foisted upon us by hand-wringers.

C. D. Field,

Guisborough, Cleveland

power cut mystery

Peter Hitchens, like me, is

unconvinced that the cause of the

widespread power failure on

August 9 was a lightning strike.

Such common occurrences are

dealt with on a regular basis by

the UK network operator National

Grid in milliseconds. An official

report would reveal the true cause.

Barry Wright, Morecambe

Change strike laws

With £54,000-a-year striking train

drivers causing misery and now

BA pilots planning strike chaos

after rejecting a £35,000 pay rise,

it’s time to review our antiquated

laws on industrial action. Our

Government should stand up for

businesses and the long suffering

public – and not preserve outdated

laws favouring trade unions.

roy Daniels, Luton

One letter writer last week,

regarding the potential

prospect of not receiving

pensions until the age of 75,

remarked that most of us

don’t do back-breaking jobs.

I am 60 and a self-employed

builder with a chronic back

problem and I will be lucky to

work until 65, never mind 75.

There are thousands like me

who simply won’t physically

be able to work until that age.

Mike Sheppard,

Canterbury

My husband is a Class 1

HGV driver with many years

of experience, but neither he

nor I feel that 75-year-old

lorry drivers will be in

anyone’s best interests.

S. Devenport, Coventry

Try being a 58-year-old

healthcare assistant. My back

and knees are already broken.

A. Massey, Bolton

When I was a child, we lived in a

flat in London and had no fridge

or freezer, so food had to be

bought and prepared from fresh.

My mother would give a list to

the grocer and her goods would

be delivered by a lad on his bike.

When I married, I also used this

‘order’ service and it worked well

until the supermarkets arrived

and I, like almost everyone else,

found it more convenient and

cheaper to shop in them. Now we

are in danger of losing all of our

high street shops as customers

shop out of town and higher

taxes make it harder for small,

independent stores to survive.

Town centres are awash with

empty properties, and banks

and post offices are gone.

What do the councils do to try

to save these high streets for

their communities? Charge more

for parking. They say they want

to discourage the use of cars

but in a rural area such as mine,

a car is essential.

I don’t want to hark back to the

‘good old days’ – so much is far

better now. But we do need to act

before our town centres are

nothing but ghost towns, and

councils need to play their part.

Maggie Morse,

Brynamman, Dyfed

‘Deal’ was not part of EU vote

Spectre of ghost towns looms large

Who wants

HGV drivers

aged 75?

As you reported last week,

Enid Blyton was denied the

honour of appearing on a

commemorative coin after

Royal Mint bosses branded her

racist and homophobic. Racist?

There are more examples of

both racism and anti-Semitism in

Shakespeare’s plays.

Homophobic? Enid died in

1968, a year after the law was

passed permitting gay

relationships in private for those

aged 21 or over. If she had

promoted or encouraged such

relationships during her career,

she would likely have fallen foul

of the law. She was of her time, as

was Shakespeare. Her great

legacy, well worth celebrating,

was encouraging generations of

young people to read.

Meanwhile, Elton John has been

given the honour of appearing

on Royal Mail stamps. I like the

man, but come on! By his own

admission, for many years he was

so heavily into illegal drugs and

alcohol that his addictions nearly

killed him – not a lifestyle parents

would encourage their children to

follow. Yet he is chosen to be

publicly celebrated, while Enid is

decried. What a funny old world.

tony Carmedy,

Navenby, Lincolnshire

I fail to grasp the logic of how

Sir Elton is to feature on a new

set of postage stamps to mark 50

years as a pop singer, whereas

Enid Blyton – one of the most

Among last Sunday’s letters about

Brexit, one said that there was

no mention of a ‘No Deal scenario’

in the 2016 referendum campaign.

The ballot paper didn’t say anything

about a deal either. Some people

read only what they want to see.

David lewis, Aberdare

Why can’t we just go back to

being a member of the Common

Market? Few people would object.

When people voted Leave, they

were objecting to the behemoth

that the EU has become – not the

free trade area it started out as.

J. Benn, London

The MPs hellbent on scuppering

the vote to leave the EU are the

real ‘usurpers of democracy’.

Kenneth Underhill, Hereford

successful authors of all time –

was not suitable, according to the

Royal Mint, for a commemorative

50p coin to mark the 50th

anniversary of her death. As they

say in America: ‘Go figure!’

Kit Owen,

March, Cambridgeshire

Enid Blyton’s Noddy series

taught me to love and value

books. I received her Shadow The

Sheepdog as a Sunday School

prize. That book inspired me to

write my first book aged eight.

Irrespective of her views, I am

not racist (have never been), I

am not sexist (no chance, having

a wife and two daughters) and I

am not homophobic.

The Noddy books no more

influenced me on these issues than

Grimm’s Fairy Tales made me

believe witches would come to the

door giving me poisoned apples or

that wolves would try to blow my

house down.

They were stories – they were

not real life and I understood that

better at three years old than

members of the Royal Mint’s

committee do in adulthood.

phil robinson,

Hucknall, Nottinghamshire

What utter nonsense to reject

Enid Blyton because her views in

a far different time could not be

considered politically correct by

today’s (extreme) standards.

Neil Coppendale,

Shoreham-by-Sea

No commemorative coin for

Enid Blyton? As the girls of

Malory Towers would cry: ‘How

jolly feeble and unsporting!’

What next? No midnight feasts in

case the sun gets upset?

Amanda Yates, Newcastle

Why is Sir elton

lauded but enid

dubbed a racist?

REX FEATURES

(^) the Mail on Sunday September 1 • 2019
KEEPING
IT REAL:
Ed Sheeran
with wife
Cherry
104