YEP Letters: April 16

High Tea for Gee Gees campaign

Petra Ingram, Chief Executive, The Brooke

This Thursday, April 21, Her Majesty the Queen celebrates her 90th birthday.

Her reign has been a fantastic achievement and we’re so grateful for her tireless support. If you’re thinking about organising a party to celebrate her birthday, why don’t you host a tea party for your friends and family and turn it into a fundraiser for an issue close to the Queen’s heart?

Her Majesty is known for her love of horses and everyone loves tea and cake, so why not combine the two and raise money for the Brooke with a High Tea for Gee Gees party? It is our aim to improve the welfare of working horses, donkeys and mules living in some of the most deprived communities all over the world, and support the people who depend on these animals for their livelihoods. All you need to do is visit www.thebrooke.org to sign up. We can send you posters, balloons, cupcake toppers and bunting.

We’d love to see your celebrations, so please tweet us @thebrooke and use the hashtag #TweetYourTea.

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Taxpayer should have a voice on spending

James Kirk, by email

In a recent letter, R Chapman made a valid point regards cash-strapped councils wasting money.

He chose to highlight the current roadworks in Middleton, where several mini roundabouts along one stretch of road are undergoing maintenance, and feels the materials used would be more suitable to filling in potholes.

I live opposite one of said roundabouts and can assure him the work is essential to road safety. I have witnessed nine road traffic incidents on the one roundabout adjacent to my home. Four of which required the assistance of police and ambulance services.

The council decided some time ago to replace perfectly functioning road junctions along this stretch of road with mini roundabouts. Had these not turned out to be a danger I doubt the council would be making such efforts to rectify their mistakes.

The waste of finances occur where common sense is lacking, and money best spent on other projects is diverted to areas that should never have required improvement.

If it works perfectly, let’s interfere with it seems to be a better council motto.

More alarming is the destruction of two recently built children’s homes on Bodmin Road just off Middleton Ring Road.

The land is up for sale, and both buildings have been totally demolished. How much did they originally cost as both were large impressive constructions, and what was the cost of the demolition work? Nothing seems to have been recycled as bulldozers tore the buildings apart leaving new timbers smashed like matchsticks amongst the ruins.

Why couldn’t the buildings have been sold with the land so that the cost of demolition falls upon the buyer?

A four per cent increase in council tax taking the average annual amount payable to £1200 isn’t pocket money. Why can’t the taxpayer have a voice in where this money goes?

How difficult can it be to set up a think tank and encourage the residents of Leeds to contribute ideas as to where the money people work hard for ends up?

Hunslet’s prodigies

Ernest Lundy, by email

Sorting through one of my cupboards, I came across a book which reminded me of the death of one of Hunslet’s academics, Richard Hoggart, another Loiner. He was one of a group of four produced by that place of many wonders, Old Hunslet. Brought up in Potternewton and Hunslet by his maternal grandmother, Hoggart became a critic and writer. Anyone with an interest in literacy, dialect and local history should read his books, Uses of Literacy and A Local Habitation.

Educated at Cockburn High School, two of his contemporaries were Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse, who both made their marks in the fields of journalism, books and plays.

The group was made up by Peter O’Toole, the lad from the two up and one down off Dewsbury Road who set out on his road to stardom in The Long and the Short and The Tall at Leeds Civic Theatre, giving further proof that this so-called working class district near to Leeds had no bounds in the versatility of its occupants.

Locomotives, tractors and all kinds of engineering products produced in Hunslet became invaluable assets for mines and railways the world over.

Sportsmen of similar reputation were produced by the dozen for rugby, soccer and cricket, and even the local bowling team of Hunslet Lake became British Parks’ Champions in 1969.

While the list of other products produced in and around this so-called deprived district is almost impossible to complete.

You name it, and it could be obtained in Hunslet. Unfortunately the place of which I write is now almost completely gone, in the so-called name of progress. Surrounded by motorways, and with the old back-to-backs long since demolished, replaced by character-less boxes, and most of the old industries , the place is no longer the same’

But somewhere the same old pride of achievement and community spirit still exists.

Illustrated by Hunslet Hawks in their new ground at South Leeds Stadium in their determination to survive. They do say that to cut open a Hunslet man will be to reveal the name Hunslet running through him, like a stick of Blackpool rock.

Having pointed out just a few of the historical and
 interesting facts about the place which played such an important part in the industrial revolution, and in so doing moulded the lives of so many wonderful people, and such a variety of products,

I can only suggest that to read Hoggart’s books would be another revelation not to be missed. Particularly Uses of Literacy, which does much to explain dialect and colloquialism in speech.

Which reminds me, I lent my copy out and never got it back!

We love Europe

Brian Johnston, Leeds 9

THE Remain in the EU elites, with their Project Fear scaremongering, continue to peddle that the EU is only about trade and prosperity and not politics.

This is a smokescreen, because the whole project is entirely political. The verbiage is between two distinct opposing governmental systems - Britain’s parliamentary democracy, and an EU unelected bureaucracy, unreformable, and a super state in the making, as laid down by one of the founding fathers of the project, Jean Monnet. Monnet wrote: Europe’s nations should be guided toward a super state, without their people knowing it, or understanding what is happening.

This can be achieved by successive steps, each distinguished by an economic purpose, but which will be eventually and irreversably lead to a federation.

The Remainers dare not reveal this to an unknowing public - trade being a mere adjunct to a super state, run by an unelected bureaucracy. Beware which EU you vote for on 23 June, because it will not be the current EU status quo.

The EU is not the question we were asked back in 1975, being then the Common Market.

Since then, each new 
treaty has been one step at a time to ever closer union and the ultimate goal - a super 
state.

We of Brexit love Europe. We will continue to speak English, French, German etc, and continue to visit and love our continent - its customs, culture, its peoples, but remain proud independent Britons, guarding our hard won sovereignty and nation.

Anti EU but proud Europeans.

Battlefield trips

John Battye, Castleford

Each year the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry organises pilgrimages to the battle areas of the First World War.

The tours are in August and September, covering France and Belgium. Seats are still available. This year we plan to visit the Somme Battlefields, the Ypres Salient, Arras, Vimy Ridge and Loos battlefield areas if requested. The trips specialise in visiting specific cemeteries or memorials on the above mentioned battlefields. An experienced battlefield guide will accompany every trip to commentate on the various battles. We can also assist people in the tracing of war graves from the First World War. The KOYLI battlefield pilgrimages was formed as a charitable hobby in 1990 by ex-servicemen who have many years of practical experience in conducting visits to the First World War battlefield areas of France and Flanders. We are a not for profit organisation and we support the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal. All enquiries to John Battye, 32 Rhodes Street, Hightown, Castleford, West Yorkshire, WF10 5LL, enclosing a medium sized SAE or call 01977 734614.