YEP letters: November 2

Today our readers are sharing their thoughts on a cold winter, drivers who don't use indicators, Hallowe'en being hijacked by adults, going back to Imperial measures, and happy memories of post-war Leeds.

Are we set for an arctic blast?

Rob Brooks, Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society

The Met eorological Office used to use analogue forecasting to predict the weather over a month ahead and I often say that this was a good proven method, as it looked at historical data and compared what the conditions were like in the past.

Today our methods are different and are based on what’s happening with sea surface temperature anomalies.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

October 2016, was the driest October since 1978. There are connections to October 1962 and October 1978 - both dry Octobers were followed by a severe winter!

Driving has never been as bad in 40 years

Mr Brooks, Farsley, Leeds

Have you noticed all the cars that don’t have indicators?

Every time I drive these days even on the shortest journey I am looking at an increasing number of cars that don’t appear to have indicators. This is on top of car drivers who haven’t had the operation to surgically remove those mobiles from their ear holes. After more than years of driving I have never known it as bad.

Hallowe’en is for children

Edna Levi, Leeds

Once upon a time Hallowe’en was a kind of fairytale early evening happening, with children dressed in pretty or funny costumes, doing their “trick or treat” visits.

Now it has turned into a money making event with adults prowling around in grotesque costumes and painted face masks-often frightening youngsters who are trying to enjoy what, to them, is a fun time.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The sale of pumpkins has soared too, but I do not begrudge fruit sellers this increase in their takings!

Do MPs live in another world?

D Angood, by email

So the money manipulators are once again manoeuvring the exchange rates or mechanisms. Is this because we can assume those people to be “remainers” and are manipulating the currency to say to the electorate, “We told you so”.

These people who live in a different world to the majority have a different perspective on life, they are not akin to the lives lived by the man on the street and their families. Politicians are of the same ilk once they are seated in the Palace of Westminster and like the money men become embroiled in their own personal wellbeing to the detriment of the man in the street.

Birthday for blues legend

Terry Maunder, Kirkstall

Oh how could you have missed Peter Green from the birthdays on October 29?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He first came to notice as Clapton’s “replacement” in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers although he already had a good reputation and more than stood up to Clapton in terms of tone and technique. The track Out Of Reach is superb and a testament to his skill and touching vocals. Then came the original Fleetwood Mac, part of the so-called “British blues boom” of the mid to late ’60s.

He is sometimes compared to Brian Wilson in that he became troubled and left music. His return was via In The Skies in ‘79, a quite creditable album and also via The Splinter Group who we saw at Leeds Irish Centre. They were really very good so hats off to him.

Ages should be verified

George Marsden, Colton, Leeds

While I have no problem with real refugees brought in from Calais, the thought of adults posing as children is concerning.

Anyone working at a school in the UK needs a criminal record check before being allowed in.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It is wrong to potentially allow adults to pose as children and give them possible access to schools. This is asking for trouble. None of them must be allowed in a school until they have verified their age.

Let’s go back to being Imperial

Judith Harris, Sandringham Gardens, Leeds

Now that we are approaching Brexit, does that mean we can go back to our beloved imperial measures such as feet and inches?

It was such an upheaval to change to metric when we were so used to the traditional weights and measures. Also, in one hand we had to use grams and litres, but we were still driving in miles and not kilometres.

What was that about?

It’s worse to take a life

R Kimble, Hawksworth

You published a letter from me recently regarding the driver who got 7.5 years for killing and seriously injuring four human beings.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

This morning I read that a fraudster gets five years for an amount that is close to what some MPs claim in expenses.

Something of an anomaly here and something about financial fraud being almost of equal importance to killing someone then? Capitalism, eh ?

Stand up to racism

John Appleyard, Firthcliffe Parade, Liversedge

After the second world war members of the Commonwealth were invited to come and work in the UK to put Britain back on its feet.

For many it seemed an opportunity of a new life, but for some they came across a colour bar for jobs and housing. The Race discrimination act of 1965 only applied to public places such as pubs and hotels, it didn’t apply in the workplace.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As part of its Black History Month BBC Radio 4 dedicated a programme to Asquith Xavier who came to the UK from the West Indies and worked as a train guard, but when he sought a transfer to Euston railway station in 1966 he found that not only management but the National Union of Railways operated a colour bar.

He received letters threatening to kill him and he needed Police protection to put his uniform on, this racism made him ill.

In 1968 Labour’s Barbara Castle introduced the 1968 Race relations act which made it illegal to discriminate in the workplace and thankfully we have become a much more tolerant society but when racism rears its ugly head we should condemn it.

What next after Poshgate?

Mike Harwood, De Lacy Mount, Kirkstall

Now we have Poshgate, and Plebgate.

And now, what have Hammersons got lined up for our once vital, and beloved part of our history, Kirkgate Market, apart from more second rate architecture?

Happy times in prefab Leeds

Roger Bates, Elmhurst Close, Shadwell Leeds

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I WRITE following SJ Payne’s letter about the long causeway prefabs (The Yorkshire Evening Post, October 17).

As a child there at the time (I lived on Wayland Walk with my parents Wynne and Frank), I’d like to thank Mrs Payne and her then neighbours for making my childhood such a warm and quite wonderful experience.

Indeed, from the abandoned wartime ack-ack site where we boys played endlessly (no girls allowed) to the communal bonfire nights with home-made parkin and toffee-apples, I remember the years 1948-58 as a time of such carefree happiness that it was almost like living in a Just William story, perhaps with a hit of Rupert Bear’s Nutwood.

Let us know your views

Your letters, every day

Join the debate or start one of your own. Email us at [email protected]

Related topics: