WITH reference to your article (Echo, Oct 19) regarding Brimham Rocks, I have visited the area and I am a fan of Emmerdale.

So when Rachel fell to her death, I wrote to the TV company to ask the name of the formation used in that sequence.

The reply I received named the formations as Happy Days and Cracked Buttress, but your article reports it was Lovers Leap.

Slight discrepancy, would you say? - Dorothy H Bohannon, Bowburn, Durham.

PARTY FUNDING

I STRONGLY disagree with the comments made by W Collinson (HAS, Oct 23) regarding public financing of political parties. The theory behind the current voting system is that people vote for the person who will do the most for their community.

The current party system is much to blame for the breakdown of society today. Political representatives no longer represent their constituents, but their political party.

Funding political parties from central funds would put the ordinary citizen at a disadvantage.

At the present time no political party fully represents the aspirations of the people, and in the very near future there may be room for more independents.

Why should the taxpayer fund politicians so that they can keep their jobs when all around lose theirs?

I agree that large political donations should be banned and parties should find donations from their members, including MPs themselves.

Handing power to parties to select the candidate and having elections financed by the taxpayers would take us down the road of dictatorship and let's face it, there are better things to spend money on. The pensioners, disabled, more police etc. - Tim Mountain, South Shields.

ROMANY MEMORIES

With reference to 'Remembering Romany' (Echo, Oct 7) by John Dean, Romany may have had strong associations with Sandsend, but it was that part of the beautiful Eden Valley called Old Parks farm that he loved best of all.

It was to there that he habitually escaped from being George Bramwell Evens, Methodist minister at Carlisle. There was a nail on a wall at the farm on which he hung his clerical clothes, changing them for worn casuals. In so doing he changed his personality, that part of him that was gipsy taking over.

From Old Parks he made blissful explorations of his beloved Eden Valley in an old gipsy caravan. His horse Comma pulled it. Comma was so called because unless he wanted it to, it never came to a full stop.

By his side sat Raq his faithful spaniel; throughout his life Romany had a succession of spaniels each of which he called Raq.

For the last decade of his life, from 1933 to 1943, he was brimming with happiness and had a weekly spot with the BBC.

As he wished, when he died, his ashes were scattered on a mound overlooking Daleraven Beck, a favourite place of his, where he heard his first curlew. A bird table, surrounded by railings, marks where his ashes lie. An inscription carries these simple words: "Sacred to the memory of Rev Bramwell Evens, Romany of the BBC, whose ashes are scattered here. Born 1884, died November 20, 1943". - Charlie Emett, Darlington.

MIDDLE EAST

THOSE of us who argue that we must tackle the root causes of terrorism are not suggesting that we should give lots of money to Muslim regimes or negotiate with nihilistic religious fanatics. Peter Mullen (Echo, Oct 22) should listen more carefully.

He suggests the solution is to find the terrorists and kill them. That is what arch-terrorist Ariel Sharon is trying to do, and it doesn't work.

If we perpetuate injustice and kill innocent civilians in pursuit of terrorists, we merely ensure that terrorists are replaced faster than they can be killed. - Pete Winstanley, Durham.

AIRPORT EXPANSION

THE current consultation process on airport development seems designed to cause maximum consternation throughout the country.

It is no surprise that people are up in arms everywhere when they see the implications of a three-fold rise in air traffic and why so many people fear that their lives are going to be blighted by noise, air pollution, urbanisation and transportation developments.

What is missing is some vision of the future. One key element has to be a considered view of how realistic and acceptable the implications of such an increase in traffic are and whether steps will have to be taken to restrain it.

The second part of the vision should be to seize this unique opportunity to boost economic prospects outside the South-East. Securing a better balance regionally is a matter of national importance and the location of new airport capacity will bias all forms of development for decades to come.

It is vital that people outside the South-East and their elected representatives press the Government to take this aspect on board when making what could be the most far-reaching decisions on infrastructure in the 21st century. - Christopher Swain, Bishops Stortford.