26 1GM Friday July 31 2020 | the times
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor should be sent to
[email protected] or by post to
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFvillage. Some joined-up up thinking at
the planning stage might encourage
more people to get on their bikes.
Alison Ker
Great Cambourne, CambsSir, With regard to the letter about
cyclists riding single file (Jul 30), many
experienced cyclists know that in a
group it is safer to ride two abreast.
This is because it forces drivers to wait
until there is a genuine safe moment
to pass on the opposite side of the road
rather than squeeze a single-file group
to the kerb as they try to pass. It also
halves the passing time for the
motorist which is safer for both parties.
Most club cyclists are drivers too and
act as they do for sensible reasons.
Michael Brunskill
GatesheadSir, Your article (“Everything you
should know before you take up
cycling”, Times 2, Jul 29) missed
several hidden, undiscussed benefits of
cycling. There are no parking charges;
you can cycle the last two miles to
your destination. And you arrive at the
entrance, not in the nasty car park.
Cycling extends your neighbourhood.
It gives you easy access to a wider
range of experiences and there are lots
of interesting places you miss in a car.But the best benefit is holidays,
whether it’s Salzburg, Chambord,
Cadiz or the Oxfordshire Artweeks.
The disadvantages? For me, my skirts
are always either too short or too long.
Rosemary Aikman Bull
ManchesterSir, I applaud the plans to encourage
the use of bicycles. But I hope this can
be accompanied by legislation making
the use of bells compulsory. Putting
cyclists and pedestrians first would be
a great step forward, but there will be
fewer pedestrians unless they can
hear the approaching bikes.
Jeremy Wagener
Boxford, SuffolkSir, I have cycled to work for most of
my working life (I am 53) and have
never been tempted to wear Lycra. I
would recommend a good set of
waterproofs though.
Colin Jones
BedfordSir, I find walking just as healthy an
exercise as cycling to keep the weight
down. I wonder if the government
could introduce a scheme to hand out
vouchers for shoe repairs.
Peter Penfold
Abingdon, OxonI’ve earned this
Sir, The value of my house has indeed
increased since purchase but cannot
be described as unearned value (James
Kirkup, Comment, Jul 29, and letters,
Jul 30). As any owner of a listed
property knows, the increase will be
due to sweat of their own brow, by
attention paid to structural repairs
within and without, and by holidays
not taken and frivolous expenditure
not contemplated. If I was found
daring to sit down outside, my
gardener would hand me a sharpened
spade and suggest that the spear
thistles needed to be dug out by hand.
Unearned, my foot!
Anne Graham
Ickham, KentTeaching nutrition
Sir, Many children are, thankfully, still
educated in food and nutrition,
including cookery, but it is by no
means universal (letters, Jul 29). A
subject that has often been neglected
in curriculum planning needs a
revolution before it can make a
meaningful contribution to long-term
health outcomes. Better funding,
realistic curriculum time and specialist
teachers should be the government’s
aim for all schools, especially at
secondary level. Sustained support for
high-quality food education would be
a step forward in the obesity debate.
Sally Huxley, ret’d teacher and
head of food studies, BirminghamSir, I agree with Elizabeth Marshall
that schools should be teaching
cookery — as long as they don’t have
the same lessons as my grandchildren.
Their school taught them to make
cakes, scones, biscuits and pizzas,
without a single sensible recipe for a
healthy meal.
Sue Tsoucalas
St AlbansMusic’s lessons
Sir, Playing music may not produce
geniuses but it can be life changing as
it develops concentration, discipline,
self-confidence and co-ordination
(News, Jul 29, letter, Jul 30). Playing a
piece in front of an audience from
beginning to end without stopping,
from memory and note-perfect,
requires habits of mind that translate
to just about any other significant
endeavour. And that’s not to mention
the emotional and imaginative doors
that open for young players as they
explore deeply what is happening as
they engage with their music.
Geoffrey Simon
London N2Brought to book
Sir, The actress Suranne Jones cuts a
stylish mien in her elegantly cluttered
shed (News, Jul 30). But, oh dear, what
a faux pas — not a bookcase in sight.
Clement O’Donovan
Frosterley, Co DurhamCorrections and
clarifications
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complaints
about editorial
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Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
Don’t stereotype
Sir, Clare Foges’s article “Let’s not be
afraid to challenge Traveller culture”
(Comment, Jul 27) includes some
important information but it commits
the error of stereotyping. Expressions
such as “the lawless elements of
Traveller culture” and “many are
destined to repeat the same pattern”
assume that the behaviour of three
criminals is representative of
thousands of people. These phrases sit
oddly with the claim that “tarring all
Travellers with the brush of these
men’s callousness is as unfair as tarring
all Catholics for paedophile priests or
all Muslims for terrorist attacks”. It is
true that there are low educational
standards, and other social outcomes
for the community are equally sad, but
a proper analysis must take account of
that fact that, far from pandering to a
“culturally sensitive force-field”, public
opinion is relentlessly prejudiced
against Travellers, with malevolent
hate crime, bullying of their children
in schools and discrimination against
them at work. When the settled
community commits crimes we do not
say it is representative of their culture.
Janet Whitaker, co-chairwoman,
all-party parliamentary group for
Gypsies, Travellers and Roma
Lords’ vital role
Sir, Baroness Smith of Basildon is
correct in suggesting that the size of
the House of Lords is becoming
unsustainable (Red Box, Jul 29). Yet
those reforming the Lords should take
care not to undermine the value of its
scrutiny. As the government seeks to
rapidly implement coronavirus
legislation, the upper house, which is
somewhat removed from the political
influences by which the Commons is
dominated, may provide a sober and
invaluable check on the government.
Adam Hay
London WC2
Cycling initiatives and the need for regulation
Sir, Your leading article (“On Your
Bike”, Jul 29) rightly applauds the
expansion of cycling. In many areas
shared spaces between cyclists and
pedestrians are encouraged, including
permeable road closures. According
to the government’s 2018 road
casualty statistics for Great Britain,
482 pedestrians were injured by
cyclists, of whom 141 had serious
injuries, with one fatality. With an
increase in cycling, has the time come
for proper regulation of cycling to
include both identification and
compulsory third-party insurance
to protect the pedestrian and other
road users.
Dr Norman Johnson
Consultant physician, London SE21Sir, There has been debate around the
construction of safe routes for cyclists.
While retro-fitting such schemes is a
good idea, it is a pity that some
developments were not planned with
commuting cyclists in mind. The new
settlement of Cambourne, for example,
was constructed with no safe provision
for cyclists wanting to access the
cycling city of Cambridge. Several
miles of straight, open road running
alongside a dual carriageway have to
be braved to reach the relative safety
of the painted cycle lane in the nextfrom the times july 31, 1920
CROWDED
HOLIDAY
TRAINS
thetimes.co.uk/archive
Farming revolution
Sir, Max Hastings could have been
more radical in his article on farming
and squarely explain the problem of
farm subsidies (“Farmers need to be
the nation’s park keepers”, Jul 30). The
£3.5 billion “support” cheque from the
common agricultural policy (CAP) has
inflated inputs, raised farmland values
and financed the development of
mega-farms, which are a long way
from being the best way to feed the
nation. Splitting the 2,000-acre farm
operated by two or three people and
growing wheat and a break crop or
two does not put much food directly
on to the table, whereas 40 holdings of
50 acres would give a coachload of
soon-to-be-redundant office workers a
new lease of (healthy) life plus a
cornucopia of delights for the table.
Brexit gives us the opportunity to
replace the flawed CAP with
something far more imaginative and
wholesome, and I suspect the Leave
vote from the farming community
expressed the real feelings many had
about it at the time.
Mike Donovan
Editor, Practical Farm IdeasLetters to The Times must be exclusive
and may be edited. Please include a full
address and daytime telephone number.The people who have made up their
minds to go away from London for
the August Bank Holiday weekend
are neither deterred nor discouraged
by the wet weather. A railway official
with 40 years’ experience stated
yesterday that he had known
nothing approaching the number of
bookings for holiday travel that have
been made for today. Between
breakfast time and 4 o’clock
yesterday afternoon over 4,000
passengers had taken tickets for
trains leaving Victoria (LBSCR)
today alone. All day yesterday the
trains to the Sussex coast were full;many of them were duplicated, and
it will be necessary to supply
increased accommodation in the
same way today. On the SECR the
same state of affairs exists. Two
thousand people have used the
inquiry office at the Victoria Station
on that line daily this week, and in
some cases three reliefs have had to
be run for a single train. Immense
crowds are travelling to resorts on
the Kent coast and to Paris and the
battlefields. This has produced
congestion not only at the railway
stations, but also at the French
Passport Office in Gower Street,
where there have been queues of
people waiting to obtain visas.
August Bank Holiday becomes a
more elastic festival every year, and
many people who in years gone by
were glad to be able to leave London
on the Saturday evening now get
away on Friday morning, or even on
Thursday night. But they are not all
travelling by train. The motorcharabanc, which has already drawn
to itself an immense patronage, and
one firm alone will have 200 motor
charabancs on the road during the
weekend. For 30s an exhaustive
round tour of London can be made
in a motor charabanc, which leaves
Ludgate Circus at 10am and returns
at 5.15pm. The fee includes
admission to all the shows of
London that are visited, and tea and
luncheon. A lecturer travels with the
car, which in its itinerary goes as far
into Suburbia as Hampstead and
Highgate. A horse-drawn vehicle for
half this sum will show travellers far
more of the City and the West End
than they are likely to remember,
and for 7s 6d one can ride through
Limehouse and Rotherhithe and
Shoreditch. Bank Holiday is the best
day in the year for the Londoner to
see the city in which he lives.New names for
British honours
Sir, Revising the names of honours, as
suggested by a group of distinguished
recipients (letter, Jul 30), in order to
break from our colonial past, is a
gesture, not a contribution to a fairer
society. Many bad things were done in
the name of the British Empire and, it
could be argued, in the name of
“British Excellence”. But many great
things were achieved by the Empire,
which was established over a long
period of combative times, during
which many powerful nations were
vying for a share in the world’s wealth
and trying to ensure that they would
not be subjugated by other nations.
Rather than attempting to airbrush it
from our past, we should examine,
educate and learn from the bad, which
we did not do when I was at school,
and celebrate and learn from the good.
Ian Hale
Farnham Common, BucksSir, I agree with your correspondents
that the honours system is overdue for
reform but I think the proposedsolution is mistaken. In the year of the
Queen’s Jubilee I suggested, and you
kindly published my suggestion, that
just as Victoria had created the
Victorian Order, the Order of the
British Empire should be replaced by
the Order of Queen Elizabeth. I still
think that is a better solution
James Allcock, OBE
Amersham, BucksSir, The signatories to the letter calling
for honours to be renamed appear to
be largely British-born. As an
immigrant from Sri Lanka, I can better
appreciate the positive aspects of
British rule in terms of sound
governance, fairer justice, improved
public services and new industries.
Were I to be awarded an honour, I
would be proud for it to be named
after the British Empire.
RP Fernando
Epsom, SurreySir, I note that none of the signatories
who wish to break from our colonial
past by replacing the word Empire
with Excellence in the honours felt
strongly enough to decline their award.
Rhidian Llewellyn
London SW19Present tense
Sir, I have learnt through more than
40 years of marriage that suggestions
for presents (News, Jul 29, letter,
Jul 30), especially when kitchen-
related, are expected to be fulfilled as
well as jewellery — not instead of it.
Stephen Hurst
Halford, WarksWe must all care
Sir, I don’t understand the furore over
means-testing for funding social care
(Rachel Sylvester, Comment, Jul 28).
My father is in a care home that costs
more than £52,000 a year. It is funded
from the sale of his house, which he no
longer needs. When the money runs
out the taxpayer will hopefully pay the
rest. It seems incredibly unfair to me
to suggest that taxpayers should fund
all his care, leaving his house to be
passed on to his children, fabulous
though that would be for us.
Deborah Brooker
Henley-on-Thames, Oxon