POSTAL SERVICES: I DISAGREE with A Bergg (HAS, Apr 19), the Post Office does not require credible competition, but rather the public needs a realistic outlook on the cost of stamps and delivery of the service in general.

The service has to rely on road and rail transportation being efficient to ensure delivery on time. I feel sure that 99 per cent of post is delivered on time.

As for second post, I live in Northallerton and regularly receive a second post. This was before the new efficiency drive.

The UK always has a postal service second to none until the debacle of recent years, which culminated in the invention of Consignia, which name has now thankfully been consigned to the dustbin. A pity the so-called new efficiency cannot go the same way.

I speak from some experience, as my father was a postal worker for nearly 40 years in Darlington and I have worked as a casual, seeing first hand the excellent service which was consistently provided.

Congratulations to Barry Wood (HAS, Apr 19), I agree, if it isn't broke, don't mend it, but isn't this a great example of the bull in a china shop method of putting things right, which seems prevalent in the Government's strategy of modernisation and often results in change for the sake of change? - S Hunton, Northallerton.

WHY all the complaints about the post deliveries (HAS, Apr 19) and the closure of small sub post offices? There is only one thing that they can be certain of, no matter how more efficient the trade becomes, and that is the price of a stamp will not come down. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

IN Tony Flynn's support for regional government, (Echo, Apr 10) his statement that the Tories closed the shipyards of Swan Hunter on the Tyne and others on the Wear was not quite correct.

The shipyards were closed by the workers themselves, because of continual strikes and delays, so completion of work by the dates required could not be guaranteed and firms took their work elsewhere.

Does he really think that an assembly based in a city can be responsible for making decisions regarding general life in many villages miles away, who live in a different climate entirely?

Pie in the sky, Mr Flynn. I will not be voting for regional government. - J MacDonald, Great Ayton.

MIDDLE EAST

I REFER to the article (Echo, Apr 16) regarding Yasser Arafat's accusation that the Palestinian refugees were forced out of the West Bank during the 1948 Middle East war.

It was the surrounding Arab states who told the Palestinians to leave because they were going to invade Israel and destroy her. That was the reason why the Palestinians left. The Arab states invaded Israel but they were defeated.

The Palestinians and Israelis got on well together before the Palestinians were infiltrated by Islamic extremists, ie terrorists who began stirring up hatred and resentment against the Israeli people.

These terrorists do not know the meaning of peace - they teach their children in school to hate and murder the Israeli people. They indoctrinate them with lying propaganda. What kind of people are they?

Israel wants to live in peace, but how can you make peace with Palestinian terrorists who are filled with hatred. - Mrs Pamela Springer, Hartlepool.

EUROPE

YOUR column Hear All Sides is fast becoming a misnomer because of the regularity with which you accept and publicise UKIP press officers' wild outpourings about the European Union.

Britain is proud about being a mature democracy. It has no need for people screaming abuse, but welcomes thought and reason in public debate. - E Whittaker, Richmond.

ECHO MEMORIES

THANK you Chris Lloyd for all your excellent articles on local history.

The one on April 16 remembering a fallen hero was a wonderful, poignant story of selfless courage.

It made me reflect on values then and now. - ME Brighten, Darlington.

CHRISTIANITY

ERIC Shutleworth pours scorn on the record of the Christian churches (HAS, Apr 19).

While I suspect his motives, some of his facts, at any rate, are indisputable and indeed I could add to them.

For 400 years, unchallenged by any effective voice of Christian witness, the modern world has gone its own sweet, destructive, individualistic way.

The result is the present plight of those Our Lord called "My Little Ones" ie vulnerable human beings certainly, but also the wildlife and plant life of our long-suffering planet.

On Judgement Day not only will industrialists, technocrats and vivisectionists get their comeuppance, so too will many so-called Christian leaders for letting them get away with it.

In the meantime, if there is to be any hope for our species we need to make a start right now, by turning again to God and asking His forgiveness. - T Kelly, Crook.

GEORGE HARDWICK

I REMEMBER as a schoolboy attending Ayresome Park with my father and seeing George Hardwick, who died recently, play for Middlesbrough.

He was one of the club's most famous players and easily recognisable, with his slimline moustache.

Hardwick was the Boro captain, of course, and always carried the ball with him when leading the team out on to the pitch.

As an East Clevelander myself, I am proud that George Hardwick was born and brought up there and enjoyed reading his autobiography, Gentleman George. - LD Wilson, Guisborough.

EDUCATION

COME, come now Pat Lerew, president of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, you are stretching the bounds of credibility by blaming Mrs Thatcher for today's children bullying each other in school.

The fashionable thing these days, especially for those of a certain political persuasion or with a grudge against government, seems to be to blame Mrs Thatcher. She has not been Prime Minister since 1990. Isn't it time people stopped blaming her for anything and everything?

Ms Lerew blames the damage done to pupils in that era who are parents today, causing them to pass wrong attitudes on to their children, hence the bullying. No way.

She claims there was no such thing as society in the 1980s. Wrong again. It was not, as she claims, everyone for themselves, but everyone, regardless of background, can scale the heights if they want to and work hard for it.

It was a society of enterprise and having confidence in yourself, not qualities to be denigrated, surely.

Let us not cast blame wrongly. Oh yes, Mrs Thatcher made mistakes. What human being does not? Today's children and parents are a product of today's society, ideals and mores, not those of the 1980s. - EA Moralee, Billingham.