Page 66 Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019
MEGHAN and Harry have
been on another gas-guzzling
jaunt. Why don’t they practise
what she preaches?
FRAN CAMBETTIE-DAVIES,
Carshalton, Surrey.
WHY do the Duke and
Duchess of Sussex feel the
need to holiday abroad when
they have beautiful homes
here? Their lives are one
big vacation.
CLAIRE SUMMERS, London NW11.
PERHAPS a small amount
could be deducted from
benefits so the royals don’t
have to ask a celebrity friend
to pay for their holiday.
J. BALMFORTH, Fleetwood, Lancs.
IN THE Middle Ages, the rich
offset their sins by making
financial contributions to the
Church. Now they pay to offset
their polluting lifestyle.
DAVE ELKINS, Portsmouth, Hants.÷÷÷÷Straight to the
POINT
LETTERS
Backstop breakthrough
I HOPE Angela Merkel isn’t bluffing
that the backstop can be dropped if
Boris and his team can come up with
an acceptable solution in 30 days.
If genuine, what this breakthrough
proves is that the threat of No Deal
should have been made at a much
earlier date.
It also shows that Labour, the Lib
Dems and a group of wimpish
so-called Tories couldn’t negotiate
their way out of a wet paper bag, as
they wanted to throw away our best
negotiating tool.
ERIC CRAggS,
Shildon, Co. Durham.
Is THE backstop fiasco not a case of
putting the cart before the horse?
Would it not have made a lot more
sense to work out the trade and tariff
situation first so the border would
not be an issue and the backstop
could be discarded?
Brexit could go ahead with everyone
knowing where they stand, and
permanent arrangements for UK/EU
relations could be implemented.
However, it seems it’s not about the
buyers, sellers, manufacturers and
citizens of Europe and the UK, but a
tiny number of bureaucrats and
incompetent politicians.
SIMON UNDERDOWN,
Carlisle, Cumbria.Humbug and fudge
I AM fed up with being told what I
can’t do or eat. It’s outrageous that
Public Health England has called
for cuts in the sugar content of
popular sweeties.
If I want to eat a boiled sweet that
is 100 per cent sugar, that should be
my choice. There is nothing wrong
with responsible people enjoying an
occasional treat.
sweets are not the cause of
childhood obesity. That is down to
parents who don’t educate their
children about healthy eating, won’t
cook proper meals for them and are
happy to let them eat fast food.
BRIAN CAULFIELD,
Worcester.Safety on the rails
OUR railways are the safest in Europe
due to the Government’s huge
investment in an effective train
protection and warning system.
The brakes are applied automatically
if a train has passed a danger signal
or is approaching a signal or buffer
stop too fast.
Most investment in UK rail safety is
unseen and expensive, but either the
taxpayer or the passenger has to pay
for it.
And yet train passengers complain
because their fares have only gone
up with inflation, and they take no
account of this huge investment to
keep them safe.
ANTHONY PEARCE,
Tilehurst, Berks.
THE trouble with the railways is that
they are severely under-capitalised.Floating in bubble
of endless bliss!
Oh, how I hate the winter,
The cold, the dark, the snow,
The coughs and colds
and chilblains.
Can’t wait for it to go.And summer’s not
my season...
The heat, the wasps, the flies,
And all those jolly barbecues
Where smoke gets in
your eyes.But oh, I love the springtime,
The birdies and the bees,
The trumpeting of daffodils,
The greening of the trees.
I’m also quite enamoured
(As you probably can guess)
Of autumn, in the glory
Of her swirling russet dress.It seems I have a problem,
For life’s too short, I know,
To waste my time in moping
As the seasons come and go.Perhaps some friendly fairy
Found flitting down the road
Could magic up a bubble
For my eco-zone abode.Then, inside Tricia-topia
I’d really live the dream,
For there sweet spring
and autumn
Would simply reign supreme.For winter’s never getting in,
Summer’s barred as well.
So, all I need’s a fairy
With a pretty potent spell.
Tricia Sturgeon,
Mundesley, Norfolk.Rhyme For
Our Time
Out of the mouths of babes
sOME years ago, our
five-year-old granddaughter,
Ginny, spent the day with us.
My wife showed her the new
statue in the garden.
‘What’s his name?’ asked Ginny.
‘He’s Peter Pan and he’ll
never grow old,’ my wife
replied, and then had to tell
her the whole story.
It intrigued Ginny so much it
had to be repeated severaltimes during the day. That
evening, her mother came to
pick her up and Ginny took
her to see the new statue.
‘He’s nice,’ her mother said.
‘What’s his name?’
There was a very long silence
until, at last, came the reply:
‘Dave!’ And Dave he’s been
ever since!
A. A. Reeve,
Church Stretton, Shropshire.Picture that!
O DALMATIAN dogs are easy
to spot!
D. S. Willcocks,
Congleton, Cheshire.O BANKERs are capital
chaps, but sadly lack interest.
Dave Summers,
Milford on Sea, Hants.Wordy Wise
SWITZERLAD — boy from Zurich.
AUSTRIAL — Vienna court
proceedings.
FLUXEMBOURG — destabilised
country.
FITALY — land of health
and strength.
ROMMANIA — obsession with
computer memory.
GREEKLAND — more generally
known as Greece.
MICELAND — Mickey and
Minnie’s country.
UNITED SLATES — thin plates
forming a roof.
COULOMBIA — country named
after unit of electrical charge.
ECUADOOR — way in and out of
south America.
Dave Cullen,
Alwoodley, Leeds.÷ SEND your contributions to Peterborough, Daily Mail Letters, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT.SALTY DOG: We saw this
shaggy and wet seaweed
dog in the harbour at Wells-
next-the-Sea in Norfolk.
Jenny Cullern,
Beckenham, Kent.email: [email protected]
All things light and beautiful,
Are not there any more,
The flowers, the trees, the
birds and bees
Were right outside my door.I can’t sit in my garden now,
To watch the squirrels
at play
My cottage was demolished,
It lies under the motorway.All the wildlife hereabouts
Have also moved away,
Like me, their homes
were taken
And lie under the motorway.I was moved to a block
of flats,
I’d moved in right away.
It even has a balcony
With plastic flowers on a tray.From my window, I see flats,
With balconies just like mine
Where some folk hang
out washing,
On a makeshift washing line.My flat is on the
seventh floor,
I don’t care too much
for heights.
But I feel a little safer here,
Away from those
weekend fights.All things light and beautiful,
All creatures large and small
All these things I valued,
But the council took
them all!
Olive Blundell,
Wigmore, Kent.Limerick
What would Harry and
Meghan do
If expecting, found she
was due
To give birth to twins
Or triplets or quins
After saying no more
than two?
Florence Forbes,
Strabane, Co. Tyrone.The Mail is published by ANL, 2 Derry St, London W8 5TT. Printed by Harmsworth Printing (Thurrock) Essex; Reach Printing Services (Oldham)
Ltd; Smurfit News Press Kells; JPI Media Ltd Portsmouth; Newsprinters (Broxbourne) Ltd. Newsprinters (Knowsley) Ltd. KP Services (Jersey)
Ltd, Recoprint Sagunto, SL, Valencia; Recoprint Dos Hermanas, SL, Sevilla; TFPrint, SA, Tenerife; Omniprint, SA, Mallorca; Mediterranee Offset
Print SA, France; Europrinter, Gosselies, Belgium; IRIS A.E.B.E SA; Estetik Yayincilik As, Turkey. Deposito legal: M. 10.489-1966 8/6/09
Sign language
BAA SNACKS: This extra-long sheep was seen in goathland,
N. Yorks, by Mrs Margaret Brown of Potters Bar, Herts.Write to: Daily Mail Letters,
2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT
email: [email protected]Rolling stock is not owned by the
service operators, but by leasing
companies, and fare revenue
generated today is used to repair and
improve the system tomorrow.
There are no fairy godmother
entrepreneurs who can invest the
necessary capital.
JOHN BELLIS,
Burton-on-Trent, Staffs.Sound of disaster
THE dramatic picture of the
Upchurch train disaster (Letters)
brought back a haunting memory.
I had been evacuated to live with
my grandmother in the village and
was walking home from a shopping
trip with my aunt across the local
fields when I heard a sudden high-
pitched whistle.
It came from the wrecked train,
and went on for a long time as the
steam from the engine was escaping
and couldn’t be stopped.
There were acres of hop fields and
orchards, yet the doodlebug had hit
a bridge over a narrow lane.
PAT CONSTABLE,
Whitstable, Kent.Every Lidl helps
READER Roy Magee may have
struggled with M&s’s customer
services (Letters), but I have to
praise Lidl. After I complained that I
had been overcharged, I was sent a
letter to present at any Lidl checkout
authorising a refund. No wonder
German discounters lead the way.
BILL WOODHOUSE,
Kirby-le-Soken, Essex.PETERBOROUGH
extraordinary
MY MOTHER
RIC McILWAINEby Annette Bateson
MY PARENTS were born on the
same day, but almost 1,000 miles
apart: Dad, Maxie McIlwaine, in
Northern Ireland, and Mum,
Henrica ‘Ric’ Maria de Vries, in
Utrecht in Holland. A chance
meeting at a dance resulted in a
lifetime together.
They were 21 when they met in
November 1944. Mum and her
friends had gone to a dance at a
local school in Eindhoven and my
Dad was there with RAF comrades
stationed nearby. Mum had beenworking since she was 14. She had
to walk to her job at Philips, the
Dutch electrical company, under
the glare of the German soldiers
who had taken over the city.
It was a frightening time that saw
her father, a printer, arrested after
he made a misprint in newspaper
type. Mum saw a neighbouring
Jewish family being taken away by
soldiers, never to be seen again.
Dad’s unit stayed in Eindhoven until
April 1945 before being transferred
to Germany. Even then, he and his
friends ‘borrowed’ RAF lorries and
sneaked back to Eindhoven to see
their girlfriends.
Mum and Dad got engaged in
September 1945, but they wereOne-line Philosophers