Letters, February 22, 2013

I was appalled to see the media circus surrounding the deaths of the elderly couple from Upper Grange Crescent in Caister on February 12 and 13.

BBC, ITV and Sky plus no doubt the newspaper press were all outside their property covering the ‘story’.

It is quite obvious to those that knew this couple that there was likely to be only one possible scenario surrounding the tragic situation.

Without the evidence of a chimney it was highly unlikely they would have died from carbon monoxide poisoning or possibly something more sinister as the media would have us believe.

I’m sure there must have been far more worthy items of news that could have been reported during those two days but it seems the media have not learned from recent events.

Who, outside the immediate area was interested in this “story” which has been sensationalised and cheapened by the media and I for one find it all very sad and intrusive. I wonder what this couple would have done if they had known it was going to create so much media attention.

JUDY SCRIVENER

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Doubling up as a war memorial

It is not unusual for a useable structure to double as a war memorial. Therefore could there not be a Bradwell Memorial Bandstand with the necessary war memorial information fitted around the apron or roof weatherboard?

PETER LAWRENCE

Repps

Help with finding a school friend

I am trying to find an old friend, her maiden name was Kathryn Boothway and she attended Cliff Park High School in Gorleston and would have graduated about 1971. I know she was studying to become a nurse but I don’t know if that came to fruition.

I also know she was engaged to be married and she used to live on Northgate Street in Yarmouth. I am just looking to connect with an old friend to see how she’s doing.

I can be contacted at robbiejohn1954@gmail.com with any information.

Anyone else that graduated from Cliff Park High School about that same time please feel free to contact me. Thank you.

ROB HILTON

United States

Care plans are a win-win for all

Having read Brian Potter’s letter (February 8), I couldn’t work out if he was criticising the hospice or the MPs for not knowing where they were. I then looked at the positives in the letter which were the hospice plans are excellent, which they are, and an excellent palliative care centre which it will be. Both have a welcome place in the healthcare environment.

Reading the article of the MPs’ visit (February 1) it is quite plain to see that the MPs’ knew where they were as they had visited both sites. So I fail to see if they were deciding whether they were in the correct location or not.

This brings us to the next comment about our MPs being sensible people, of course they are Mr Potter, they are devoting a lot of time and effort to both projects.

One further suggestion made was that the photograph should have been taken at the palliative care centre and not at the hospice site. Does it really matter where the photograph was taken?

The article of the Mercury (February 1) gave a good balanced view of the hospice, palliative care centre and the James Paget Hospital. I would call that a win-win situation for all concerned, wouldn’t you?

GEOFF SANDERSON

Belton

‘We’re all in it together?’ Haha!

Perhaps the best joke ever told was David Cameron’s “we are all in it together” statement. When will ministers ever venture into the real world, they seem so far removed to be unreal.

So Mr Cameron, why don’t you take our MP and your other ministers on a month’s holiday to a London council estate, living on benefits. I am certain that you will all enjoy it because your benefits are so good, with most people having second homes, it is a wonderful experience and then you all would really be in it together.

PETER MANTRIPP

Leman Way,

Gorleston

The ‘Holy nation’ cannot be us

The reason why the Church of England doesn’t use it’s own funds is because it is a State religion, its clergy have seats in the House of Lords., it is not as described by the Apostle Peter at 1 Peter 2.9 “But you are a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for special possession, that you should declare abroad the excellence of the one that called you out of darkness unto his wonderful light, for you were once not a people, you were those who had not been shown mercy, but are now those who have been shown mercy.”

This holy nation cannot be England or any other country so the Church of England cannot be the holy nation referred to by the Apostle Peter, therefore it looks to the country to claims to represent rather than looking to the Creator and those who worship the true God to care for their financial needs.

PHILIP KNIGHT

Wherry Way,

Great Yarmouth

Answers please, Councillor Plant

Graham Plant, county council member for Great Yarmouth is very quick to go to the press if he has information which he thinks will up his profile but is very slow when asked questions which he seems to be embarrassed to answer,

I also emailed him to ask if the taxpayer was footing the £36,000 legal cost to intervene in the “bun fight” between Norfolk conservatives as I believe it should be paid by the Norfolk conservatives as they seem to think other people should be cutting costs but not them, as of yet I still have not had an answer. Come on Mr Plant please give us the answers

P A RIDLER

East Anglian Way,

Gorleston

Who remembers horsemeat shop?

Am I the only person who can remember a horsemeat shop located opposite The Feathers public house, and doing a good trade no doubt? This would be approximately 1946. I can recall the sign so clearly over the premises. When it went out of business I have no idea.

VERA TRAYNIER

Priory Gardens,

Great Yarmouth

Horse scandal is tip of iceberg

The current horsemeat scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. Most of the meat in our supermarkets gives us no information about the welfare of the animals. Of course the higher welfare products carry labels like “free range” or “organic”, but other products offer little or no information on how the animals lived and died.

This means the pork could come from pigs who’ve had their tail docked without anaesthetic, lived their lives in barren pens on slippery slatted floors and never been given a straw area to sleep on. The average chicken could be one of the 27pc that Defra estimate go lame before they get sent to slaughter - and that’s an awful lot of birds in pain.

I think it’s high time we were given a window into the lives of the animals we eat. I’m supporting Compassion in World Farming to get compulsory labelling of all animal products, so we can know how and where those animals were reared. how long transported for and how they were killed.

PETER TENNANT

Yarmouth Road,

Ormesby St Margaret

Localism? Well what a shambles

It was good to read that Brandon Lewis has seen the error of his ways by record cuts to our council budget (which ought to be his too) but what a shambles.

The Government set out with a localism aim to see decision making made locally. What a shambles! Councils need to know what funding is available so they can do long term planning and not stagger from cut to cut.

First we see Eric Pickles spending £250m on encouraging councils to be less efficient by re-introducing weekly waste collections just as most had got used to fortnightly ones! Then regional assemblies, run by elected councillors, are abolished with all the associated redundancy costs. Unelected Local Enterprise Partnerships are then established and takeover some of the assembly and council functions and even re-employ some of the staff!

Now we have funding cuts announced in one month a new grant introduced in the next month to replace the money that was cut! The Communities Minister wanting all sorts of conditions to be met- so much for localism.

On other occasions, local officers spend many hours bidding for funds so other central government officials can judge what is good for the town. Remember the failed Mary Portas Shopping Centre Fund bid and the bid to help the down and outs in Winterton and Somerton for example?

Bureaucrats are wasting millions devising new schemes and seeking to control what should be local! I think it is more about their career progression than service to the community. A way needs to be found to fund most local services locally with a revised support formula for needs of poorer areas.

A local income tax comes to mind with a cut in national income tax rates to compensate. We could even abolish the Communities Department and save even more!

The present shambles is no way to carry on - get it right first time was taught to me in my first job at Ferryside and should still apply.

CHRIS WRIGHT

Victoria Street,

Caister on Sea

Wrong site for a war memorial

I heard, with trepidation, the news there is to be a war memorial erected on the green in Church Walk. While I do feel it’s somewhat late for the Parish Council to suddenly decide to honour Bradwell’s war dead, I have no strong feelings either way on the memorial itself. What worries me is the chosen site for it.

The green has some lovely trees on it, including a circle of seven sycamores, and I fear this memorial will almost certainly result in some idiot with a chainsaw arriving to cut down one or more of these trees, to make way for it, thus ruining a rare green area, as yet unmarred (except by litter) by human hand.

If we are to have a memorial, then why on earth can’t they leave the natural green in Church Walk alone, and site it instead on the Green Lane playing field? This has already been systematically ruined by the parish council putting up, or allowing, dozens of different coloured notices, an array of hideous multi-coloured advertising boards, garish bright blue and yellow games court, garish bright orange and purple rain shelter, garish bright red benches, garish multicoloured children’s play area, badly-bodged fencing extension on the bowling green, ridiculously over-powered security light on the terracotta coloured Leo Coles pavilion, and ghastly black and bright yellow height restriction gates to the car park.

It looks as if the whole thing was designed by a Lawrence Llwellyn Bowen Wannabe on a seriously bad acid trip. A tasteful “blood red granite” stone shouldn’t look out of place at all!

There is an ideal location, between the car park and the bowling green, which is not used for anything else and has a footpath running right past it, so there would be existing easy access for those who wish to visit the memorial, especially the elderly or disabled. Furthermore, being on a busier through road, it would be more visible to more people, and, being visible, and within range of the exisiting security camera, less likely to be vandalised and spray painted.

How long was it before the stone they put up on Gipsy’s Green a few years ago was ruined by graffiti? A week? Ten days?

Church Walk is not a through road, and very few people pass there in the evenings. I can see the memorial becoming a beacon for local thuglets to gather with their spray paint, lager cans and vodka bottles.

We already have this on the playing field during the summer months, and do not want it on the back green as well!

If they site in on Church Walk, not only will we probably see healthy trees being felled, but it is likely to be just a matter of time before they belatedly realise they will need security lighting and cameras and footpaths and seating and litter bins and notices and fencing, and the one unspoilt area of Bradwell village will be as ugly as the playing field has become.

For those of us who live in the houses overlooking both the green on Church Walk and the playing field in Green Lane, there will be no escaping it either way, but the Green Lane playing field is a far more logical site to choose, will cause less problems, cost less money and upset far fewer people.

Please, Bradwell Parish Council, use a little common sense, and rethink!

SUE CROOK

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Cherish James Paget Hospital

At a time when poor hospitals are news I would just like to say how much we in this area should cherish our own James Paget.

Last week I was taken to A&E at 7am in the morning. By 7.30am I was hooked to two drips and an oxygen mask is in place.

I then had a series of blood tests and blood pressure tests plus an ECG. After two hours I underwent a chest xray and after three hours was given the choice of being admitted for an overnight stay or going home.

I chose to go home but the next morning I was very poorly again and my husband called the ambulance, which arrived within 15 minutes. The two paramedics were wonderful and did lots of tests before reassuring me that bed rest and continuing with the medication would finally do the trick. They were with me for one and a half hours before going on their way.

I am making a very good recovery and would like to thank any staff who treated me at the A&E on February 14 from 7am and the two kind men who attended me about 8am on February 15.

We should be very thankful that we have such dedicated people to care for us.

BETTY ROLL

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