27/11/04

During the war, one fire brigade for the whole of this country proved its worth during the Blitz.

The RAF has one fire brigade for all its airfields and the equipment on all fire engines is standard.

Before the war, Middlesbrough Fire Brigade had hydrant plates of blue and white numbers which might not have been understood by other brigades. Their hydrants were bayonet type which could not be used by other equipment on other fire engines, but because of the fire brigades being nationalised, all brigades now have hydrant plates that are yellow with black numbers on.

Looking abroad, one can see just how small our fire brigades are. When Cyprus was in the British Empire, its large towns (Famagusta, Limosol, Larnaca, etc) were all run from the headquarters in Nicosia and very efficient they were.

In Saudi Arabia, a country larger than the whole of Europe, there is only one fire brigade run by the army. The satellite technology now would direct fire engines to any street in the country, but is too expensive for small brigades.

Since the British Army had the fire brigades over the whole of the United Kingdom during the fire strike and they did it efficiently at a very low cost, saving a lot more than a penny a week, it may be that John Prescott might try to nationalise the fire brigades again and save more money if the army runs them again. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

LAW AND ORDER

MAY I give thanks to Tony Blair for hitting hard against people who promote terror. It is great.

I have one question that maybe some of your readers can answer. That is: will this mean that I can defend my house and family against people threatening to try and take them from me without fear of going to court, then jail? Or does it still mean that only people with money or people in Westminster (same thing I suppose) are allowed to do so?

In the past, people have been informed by the police that they are not allowed to harm anyone who threatens their family or their home, yet these same people wander around our area with guns on show and patrol Westminster, behind a concrete barrier, again with guns on show.

Please someone explain the differences before someone thinks about causing harm. - Peter Brown, Trimdon Village.

HUNTING

I HAVE just read, with some amazement, that a small section of the police force have threatened to resign if they are compelled to enforce the foxhunting ban.

They did not have any difficulty in enforcing their will against the miners when they were provoked to strike, not for higher wages, not for shorter hours, but for the right to work.

Ships from various countries loaded with Christmas presents for the miners' children forced to stay at sea, outside the ports; curfews on mining villages; roads blocked to prevent them from helping their beleaguered workmates in other parts of the mining industry (secondary picketing). There was no lack of enthusiasm then by the police to baton honest, hard-working British men and women on to the dole queue.

Now, suddenly, a small band of our law enforcers have developed a social conscience. For what? To support and maintain the feudalistic and barbaric custom of tearing one of God's creatures limb from limb. There is a simple solution. We could recruit all the hunt saboteurs as special constables.

Surely the people's government, New Labour, with its fantastic parliamentary majority and its resolute and war-waging leader Tony Blair will not allow the will of the people to be thwarted by a tiny majority of uniformed Luddites and red-coated sadists. Or will they? - James Fitzpatrick, Gateshead.

SMOKING

IT was 1943 when I joined a mainly Arab and French audience in an Algerian cinema.

It came as a complete surprise and a real eye opener to be able to view a film in a clean, smoke-free auditorium.

Why any nation on earth, with any shade of government, still has to struggle with the idea of clean air in public places makes no sense at all in 2004.

Why pussy foot around with further delay in the reduction of misery, and the appalling cost of the ill health due to breathing poisonous tobacco fumes? - Tom Cockerham, Leeds.

AIRPORT

ISN'T it time that the change of name of our local airport was laid to rest?

I worked there when it was RAF Middleton-St-George in the 1960s and again when it was Teesside Airport without the hyphen from 1978 and with the hyphen.

But on reflection, it is no wonder our cousins in the south look down their noses at us when local people are so backward thinking that they cannot work out that there is a county called Durham, and not just a city.

Please, either get used to the name or grow up, or both. As long as we know where it is, who worries that strangers from foreign shores cannot find it? That's what the Tourist Information Centres are for. - EA Harris, Darlington.

PENSIONS

THIS Government has set up yet another commission to investigate and report on what can be done about our private works pension fund deficit crisis.

What the commission is not allowed to say is that the deficit in our private works pension funds is due to the present Government raiding these funds to the extent of £5,000m every year since it came into office.

This is the money that you and I have saved and paid into our works pension funds in the happy hope of providing our own pension to supplement the basic state pension when we retire.

This is nothing short of concealed robbery by this Government of our hard-earned savings from the pension companies that are looking after our savings for our retirement and, to cover up the results of their actions and to add insult to injury, they are now saying that we should consider working until we are 70 or even 75 years old before retiring.

We should also remember that this Government voted themselves large increases in their own guaranteed pensions when we come to vote in the next general election. - RW Alexander, Darlington.