Letters to the Editor

Since the Fifties, somewhere in the region of 3,500 chemicals have been added to food, not counting agrochemicals or hormones. Here in Britain we consume a quarter of a million tons of food chemicals annually.

Assuming there are 60m of us, this works out to 9.3 lbs annually or just over 11 grams of chemicals eaten daily by everyone in Britain.

Let's assume there is a Government agency that has been diligently checking these chemicals for safety and that none of them are carcinogenic or otherwise nasty in any way. That being the case, then with the best will in the world we must also assume that some of them are anti-nutrients.

Anti-nutrients are substances that "use up" vitamins or other nutrients in the body during the process of being "got rid of." This is a problem because, nationally, we have a low up-take of vitamins and minerals, often way lower than the recommended daily allowance.

Imminent European legislation - the Food Supplements Directive, the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive and the Amendments To The Medicines Directive - appears to be aimed at making vitamins, minerals and herbs either more expensive or unavailable, so supplementation is under threat too.

Given the rising levels of degenerative disorders, cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's, perhaps we should be encouraging people to "fret a little more about what they eat." I feel eating better and improving our nation's health would "surely be quite productive."

RIK DENT

Low Street,

Little Fencote,

Northallerton.

Action is reckless

Sir, - I am appalled at this latest demonstration (D&S, Aug 9) by farmers protesting at the 20-day ban on the movement of livestock.

This ban is a measure put in place by the Government, on reliable veterinary and scientific advice, to minimise the effects of another outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Last year's outbreak had a devastating effect on the countryside as a result of its rapid spread.

This demonstration, demanding the 20-day ban be removed, is reckless in the extreme. Farmers are again playing fast and loose with the health of their animals, and I, for one, shall not be buying any of their produce until they show a more responsible attitude to the animals which provide us with our food.

PATRICIA RAMSAY

East Cowton,

Northallerton.

Thanks for help

Sir.,- I would like to convey my gratitude to the people who assisted my husband and I when he collapsed driving home from Darlington on July 31.

We will be forever grateful, especially to the young lady who stopped first in response to my frantic waving and who called the emergency services and gave them directions; to the young man and young lady who gave resuscitation on the roadside and to Theresa, of HM Prison Service, who also assisted and rang the hospital that evening to see how my husband was.

May I also say thank you to the ambulance and helicopter crews and the police who responded so quickly and enabled him to be in hospital in minutes.

Last, but not least, we cannot praise staff at Darlington Memorial accident and emergency department and CCU highly enough.

LIZ CHAPLIN

Lead Lane,

Brompton.

Sir, - For years,we have been unable to stem the flow of high speed traffic through West Witton.

Indeed, I am looking now at a review conducted by your paper in May 1994, at the instigation of Coun Nigel Watson of Leyburn.

Some in the village think that fake camera signs would help. Others that "sleeping policemen" bumps would stem the phrenetic folk from Teesside anxious to access our upper dale.

But two weeks ago, we discovered the remedy. Or rather, we thought we had. It was the floods. Due to heavy rain, the village was awash. At one point there were four fire engines pumping away.

The Army came to help. Full marks, by the way, to the RAMC Officer who asked, through my window if I needed any help.

Drivers going up the dale would have seen the first fire engine, blue lights flashing, before encountering the flood tumbling down Grassgill.

Drivers going down the dale would have seen the fourth engine, with the Wensleydale Heifer neatly surrounded by sandbags. Well done, the Richmondshire Council men here.

So, we thought, drivers will slow down. We were wrong. Many of us were disgusted to see the thoughtless behaviour of some drivers. So we decided to photograph the worst, and to write to you, Sir, for the greater good.

We called Sarah Banks, the managing director of Ianson Animal Feeds, whose blue trucks are a familiar sight. Did she know that they were coming through at around 50 mph? We gave her the numbers of her trucks and she promised "to have a word".

We called Peter Metcalfe of Hawes, whose big red cattle wagons are also part of the fauna of the A684. They normally ignore speed limits, and on that day they were also ignoring the flooded conditions. "It is not good enough" said Peter, and said he would talk to the drivers, whom he knew to be on that route.

I mention only two out of, sadly, many. Four by fours were consistently bad behavers. Stockton registered NX02VMK went up and down several times, without a care for the bow wave he was creating. Cars, too, like P300GUY, and A5MCN, seemed to revel in the challenge of the West Witton water feature.

All of these, and many others ignored fire engines, sand bags, floods, oh and by the way, speed limits. So, who did drive carefully?

Full marks to the local utilities, Northern Electric and BT.

DAVID A LAMB

West Witton.

Missing fish

Sir, - Just a few words with regards to your articles on the "missing salmon" in the Tees.

My family and I have fished the Tees now for two generations. My father Jack Nicholson in the 1940s and both my brother and myself in the 50s and 60s up to the present day.

My brother, David, and myself took up salmon fishing in the 80s and did very well catching quite a few fish. Things seemed to be on the up in the Tees. Salmon could be seen leaping on most days that we went out.

Things carried on well until 1995, the same year the barrage went into operation, and after that the whole river seemed to change for the worse. My salmon returns just went downhill.

I have in my possession a list of fish caught from the 1995-6 season to the 1999-2000 season and it makes grim reading, in fact after 2000, I stopped keeping records as it was just a waste of time as no fish have been caught.

Don Taylor is quite correct to be concerned about the river and he has my total support. It seems the Environment Agency and the barrage authorities are quite keen to tell us that many fish are going through the fish pass and other routes, but we are not seeing the fruits of this upstream, which begs the question again, where are they going?

PETER NICHOLSON

Balmer Hill,

Gainford.

Raptor worry

Sir, - I would like to say how much I enjoyed the article by Mike Bridgen on Jack and Angela Kersey (July 19).

Its nice to see someone giving their time and effort putting themselves out in the course of conservation to attract and arrest the decline of the wild bird population.

My major worry is they have now highlighted where a major food chain is instead of keeping it to themselves. Maybe I am worrying about nothing, but my theory is, the bird population decline started when raptors were protected by law.

Having no natural predators except man, they have multiplied in leaps and bounds and now endanger our bird population.

Reports which mention a million birds taken per year, whether true or not, have to be taken seriously. Local and national papers reports say raptors are starting to nest outside their normal environment, showing a lack of nesting sites in the wild and shortage of a food chain.

Nobody moves unless there is a shortage, so it must mean there are a lot more raptors then we are let on to believe.

R K Dodsworth

Finchale Court,

West Rainton