02/04/05

It upsets me that children of today are to be the first generation that are expected to die before their parents due to their weight, eating habits and lack of exercise.

They continue to choose the option of junk food rather than healthy alternatives such as fruit and vegetables, which increases their risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Both parents and children need to be educated to understand the importance of healthy eating and exercise to prolong their life expectancy and they need the help of the organisations involved in the new taskforces to encourage and motivate them.

I think it is a great idea that a scheme like this has been implemented in the town and hope that many other areas in the country adopt campaigns like this to tackle the problem of obesity that has become a national concern. - Kayleigh Denham, Darlington.

SCULPTURE

MY husband and I are absolutely disgusted to read that a giant sculpture of a reclining woman with hips and breasts up to 100ft high is to be placed next to the A1 motorway and is expected to stretch along half a mile of dual carriageway.

Why is taxpayers' money being spent on this ridiculous sculpture? Were people asked if they wanted it?

Can Charles Jencks and Anthony Gormley not think about something that is beautiful and lovely to sculpt instead of this monstrosity?

We suggest that Charles Jencks and Anthony Gormley put the sculpture in their back garden. Please spare the motorists who will be using the A1 having to look at this ugly piece of sculpture. Stop wasting taxpayers' money and find out what people really want. - Mr & Mrs P Springer, Hartlepool.

VEG ON MENU

I AM writing to tell you that National Vegetarian Week takes place from May 23 to 29.

This year, the theme is Can You Keep It Up For A Week?

The Vegetarian Society has put some luxurious, but simple, recipes on their website.

Visit www.vegsoc.org/nvw to find out how to cook jewel green rocket soup with parmesan potato polenta, smoked garlic and artichoke risotto, chocolate cheesecake, and gingery fig and rhubarb filo flowers.

If ready meals or meat alternatives are more your style, products like Quorn provide lots of great options for meat free family meals, or visit your health food shop for lots of alternatives.

You never know, a week of veggie food might just surprise you. - Name and address supplied.

FREIGHTER PLEA

THIS is possibly a vain plea, but I wonder if any of your readers might have a photograph, or could suggest where one might possibly exist, of the 2,115-ton freighter Dulwich, which was built in 1893 by Ropner & Son at Stockton, for Britain SS Co, for whom Watts, Watts & Co, were managers.

Ropners, now a shipping company, have no knowledge of the vessel. - Neil Potter, London.

JONATHAN KING

CONVICTED paedophile Jonathan King should be returned to prison to serve the rest of his sentence.

Historically, paedophiles are the very people who complain about their lot, cold cells, bullying, long sentences, etc at a time when any other reasonable adult convicted of such hideous crimes would and should be so disgusted by their behaviour they would shut up and get on with it.

What about the unfortunate victims, boys aged between 13 and 15, along with their families, who have been scarred for life.

Legislation allows prisoners to be released after serving only 50 per cent of the original sentence, an appalling state of affairs.

This should be banned for miscreants like King, who are released early even more arrogant than he was when first incarcerated. - Robert Bridgett, Shildon.

GO TO SCARBOROUGH

WHEN are British people going to get the message from Greece? We are not welcome there.

The tragic Christopher Rochester case is only the latest, though the worst, of a series of indignities suffered by British tourists from the Greek authorities.

They welcomed us there once, from 1941-1947, when they needed us, and there are countless British graves in Greece to prove it.

Much vaunted Greek culture does not, however, extend as far as gratitude and good manners, and if they're not included in the mix, as far as I'm concerned, you can stick the rest.

My advice to people fancying a holiday in Greece is to think again. Go somewhere more hospitable like Scarborough, where you have both the sea and nice countryside on your doorstep too. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

DEDICATED STAFF

LIKE Hugh Pender (HAS Mar 25), I too have spent time in Darlington Memorial Hospital over the past few years.

I was also immensely impressed by the dedication of the nursing staff during times when they were stretched to the limit in carrying out their, at many times, very onerous tasks.

In my view, the quality of the care I have received was due to their desire to look after the needs of their patients - nothing at all to do with the NHS as such.

They spoke to be about their unhappiness at the working conditions they had to put up with and the relatively poor financial rewards they received for their services.

They were excellent because they were dedicated nurses, not working for the NHS but, it seemed to me, in spite of the NHS.

Mr Pender is living in cloud cuckoo land in saying that the NHS is a free service.

Those of us paying taxes will hardly agree with him as taxation, in whatever form it takes, is where the cash comes from. - Peter Johnston, Darlington.

DAWDLING DRIVERS

WE are hearing quite a lot about speeding and speed cameras. I don't condone speeding, far from it.

But what about the dawdling driver who holds traffic up on roads that have a 60mph limit by doing between 25 and 30mph on open roads but with few overtaking places.

These people cause frustration and cause overtaking to take place when it should not.

I travel one of these roads frequently and find myself behind a line of cars and vans because the front car is too frightened to overtake a push bike.

I expect to be held up sometimes by lorries, tractors and other slow moving vehicles, but not cars of today. - DA Bickley, Shildon.