Those cowards

English Heritage has a different sense of history - witness the choice of a handful of First World War cowards to commemorate in a garden in Richmond Castle (D&S, May 31).

Cowards they certainly were, though it is customary in this "enlightened" age to dress them up in laudatory phraseology, but cowards they remain. They had no problem in eating food brought at great cost to this country by the Merchant Navy, to shelter behind the men at the front, to sleep soundly whilst the RFC in their flimsy machines did battle with the night raiders.

Is it coincidence that English Heritage should choose to insult our town by locating this garden of infamy within yards of the Regimental HQ of the Green Howards, Yorkshire's regiment? For over 300 years they have played their part in protecting our county, as 18 VCs prove.

I do not know if English Heritage will have any say in who should occupy the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square, but might I suggest they opt for King John, Peter Sutcliffe, Sir Oswald Mosley, Sir Roger Casement, the Moors murderers, all good subjects under the twisted sense of values held by them?

English Heritage would then have two good reasons to be ashamed of themselves.

Maj ROY TYLER MBE

Culloden Mews,

Craven Gate,

Richmond.

County position

Sir, - As the chairman of the committee which considered an appeal made by the parent of the pupil from the village of Wombleton for free home to school transport in order to attend Ryedale School, I feel I must reply to your report on this issue (D&S, May 24).

Following the hearing of the appeal, which was turned down by the committee, the appellant asked the Secretary of State to investigate. The Secretary of State concluded the hearing had been conducted correctly.

Contrary to your report, the appeals committee did have regard to the information submitted by the police. However, the police do not use the same criteria as is required to be used by the county council. Officers base their judgment on the adopted guidelines prepared by the County Surveyors' Society.

The Secretary of State remarked on the police report which judged the two routes in question to be too dangerous for unaccompanied children. The report did not, however, mention parents and this is highly significant since it is the policy of the council to find routes unsafe where they are hazardous for an accompanied child.

Therefore, the committee was not only aware of the police report's conclusions on the routes but also that the conclusions made therein had been presented to them in an over-stated manner. Moreover, the council has had the route in question assessed on several occasions by experienced panel members and videos of both routes were shown to the committee during the appeal.

Your report refers to the council not providing a bus from Wombleton to Ryedale School because the children live 2.3 miles from the school ie less than the three-mile limit. There are in fact two access roads linking Wombleton and Ryedale School, both being under three miles. One being via the A170, a distance of only 1.16 miles from the school with the alternative route being via Harome Road, a distance of 2.55 miles.

Furthermore, you will appreciate that there are a considerable number of primary school children throughout North Yorkshire who live under three miles from their local school and for whom their parents make arrangements for them to get to school where school transport is not provided.

Coun MICHAEL S KNAGGS

North Yorkshire County Council

County Hall,

Northallerton.

Live and let live

Sir, - I have read with interest the discussions regarding motor vehicles within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. However the letter from Gundrun Gaudian (D&S, May 31) has forced me to put pen to paper.

If the writer wants to get away from motor vehicles then walking on either a public footpath or bridleway will ensure this. If however our "ardent walker" wishes to walk on either a byway, a "road used as a public path" or indeed an unclassified road then in some cases she may see motor vehicles. These roads in most cases carry the same rights of way as a dual carriageway.

The dales have many miles of footpath and bridleway and it is very easy to get away from everything, even other walkers if one so desires. How then do The Ramblers' Association and the like seek exclusively of use of all rights of way for walkers? Why can people not simply live and let live?

Incidentally the off road groups organise Green Lane days each year to repair lanes damaged not by overuse, as most antis say, but damage by water over the winter months, I have yet to see ramblers do this.

The national park's stance against the use of motorised vehicles within the national park is based only on the element of noise that they make.

In comparison to 20 ramblers walking together, or an overhead RAF jet, I suggest that the noise issue is a very petty argument. The national park authority should welcome all types of people and ensure facilities are there for them to bring money into the park.

I wonder what the antis will want to ban next when the motor vehicle users have left to spend their money somewhere more accommodating? Dogs perhaps? Mountain bikes? Or perhaps screaming children? Labelling certain people as unwelcome is, to me, appalling.

CHRIS CARNEY

South Crescent,

Sowerby,

Thirsk.

Nothing changes

Sir, - North Yorkshire councillors are to be commended for raising the issue of speeding motor cyclists on country roads (D&S, May 31) but they really are whistling in the wind if they expect the police to take action.

Residents of West Witton, crisis meetings at Horton in Ribblesdale among others have all sought to highlight the speed, the fear and the noise many of these visitors to the Dales and North York Moors cause each weekend and bank holiday. Then there's the collective wringing of hands when people die. But nothing changes. And the resigned words of PC Rogers you quoted would be laughable if they did not come from a serving member of Her Majesty's Constabulary.

North Yorkshire Police has won a 45pc increased funding from council tax payers this year. Councillors cannot expect officers to actually listen to what residents believe should be their policing priorities. It's going to take a lot more money than that.

RICHARD WELLS

East Witton,

Nr Leyburn

Sir, - I recently attended a meeting of the Craven branch of the National Farmers' Union (NFU). In times gone by your readers may have thought that this was the action of Daniel entering the lion's den!

Happily things have changed, and today I sense that there is a greater understanding between this national park authority and the farming community of the dales. That said, there will always be debates and at times disagreements, it would be wrong if there wasn't.

The meeting itself was very useful on a number of fronts. For me, the most overwhelming sentiment to come from the meeting was the gratitude of the area's farmers to the wider public for their support over the last year.

Both the NFU and this authority would like to pass on our whole-hearted thanks to the public who respected the closed footpaths and bridleways of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, which today, thankfully, are once again 100pc open.

The other reason that the meeting was useful was that it gave me the chance to explain our current position on agriculture in the dales and to sound out those at the sharp end. It is no secret that we want to see a shift away from national agricultural subsidies that subsidise over-production to those that reward farmers in the uplands for the role they play in conserving and enhancing this great landscape that so many come to enjoy.

This is no pipe dream. One only has to examine the latest Government thinking on the subsidy question to see on the horizon a very real opportunity to turn around farming in the uplands and see a new dawn where dales farmers get realistic payments for what the public wants - a productive, protected and enhanced landscape.

That said, I left the meeting in no doubt of the many hardships that continue to face dales farmers. Yet I was pleased of the common ground that does exist between us through our shared desire to see agriculture back on a better footing, for the benefit of both farmers and the landscape of this national park.

DAVID BUTTERWORTH

Chief executive, Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority,

Bainbridge.

Shift to stewardship

Sir, - The RSPB, together with 13 other organisations, has written to the Prime Minister to urge him to support the crucial changes that we all believe need to be made to the way in which our food is produced.

It is three months since Sir Don Curry's Food and Farming Commission published its findings and recommendations for the future of the British countryside in the wake of the disastrous foot-and-mouth epidemic.

The commission recommended that a shift in farm subsidies from food production to environmental stewardship was urgently required. Without long term investment and diversion of subsidies from intensive food production into truly sustainable farming and more choices for consumers, we shall continue to see the impoverishment of small farmers, declines in the rural economy, losses of wildlife and continuing frustration on the part of the public.

Along with my colleagues from organisations as diverse as The Soil Association, The Ramblers and Butterfly Conservation, we believe the Treasury must find ways of making new money available to fund the commission's recommendations.

ANDY BUNTEN

Regional director, RSPB North of

England Region,

Newcastle-upon-Tyne,

No consultation

Sir, - I was disappointed to read in the D&S of May 31 that, without any prior consultation with the parish council, a decision had been made to site the new Yorkshire Dales National Park offices at the council depot at Bainbridge.

This is the only brown field site Bainbridge has left to build on. Has the national park authority considered any of the following points when making this decision?

* Local affordable houses (top of the list on the Residents' Perception Survey).

* Small business needs.

* The possible need for future expansion of High Hall to ensure that it will be kept open.

* Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the necessity to retain the salt pile needed in the upper dales.

When the national park told us we had to be a conservation area, we were led to believe that we, the parish council and residents, were going to have some input on how our village would be shaped in the future.

If reading about it in the D&S is their idea of input it certainly isn't mine.

Coun YVONNE PEACOCK

Bainbridge,

Leyburn.

Wonderful wind

Sir, - To all wind farm objectors I recommend a fact finding visit to Delabole (the UK's first windfarm) in Cornwall. The Gaia visitor centre is fascinating. The turbines are magnificent, almost silent even at close quarters and do not compromise the ecology of the Cornish coast.

V LUPTON

Lowcross Avenue,

Guisbrough.

Sir, - A friend has just been diagnosed as suffering from prostate cancer and is to undergo surgery in the near future. He had no symptoms and the cancer was found because he was having treatment for another, unrelated, illness and the GP took a blood sample which revealed unusually high levels of PSA (prostate specific antigen). His cancer has been caught at an early stage and we are hopeful that he will make a full recovery.

High levels of PSA are not absolute in identifying prostate cancer but they are a "high risk" sign which, in all cases, merits further medical investigation.

Why are men not given this check on a regular basis after reaching retirement age? In fact, why aren't men given regular checks for cancer in a similar way to that in which women routinely are checked for breast cancer, smear tests etc?

The death rate for men with prostate cancer now exceeds the rate for women suffering from breast cancer. In the UK, it seems to me that cancer screening is more geared to supporting women than to men. My brother in Canada has his PSA level checked every year, as a matter of course.

Men should insist on such checks being made every year and ideally the checks should be arranged by the GP calling in men of retirement age in for examination. Could the NHS manage I wonder?

PAUL HIRST

Hird Avenue,

Bedale.

A great scholar

Sir, - I have just read with sadness the obituary of Tom Eden in the D&S Times, and beg a little space in your columns for my own reminiscences and comments on this remarkable man.

It was through your correspondence columns that I first met him; a query about the appearance of an early and little known Stockton & Darlington Railway locomotive and my reply led to a strong friendship that has lasted for many years now.

This would probably have been in 1987; it was encouraged by Peter Ridley, your editor at the time, and himself much interested in that railway.

Tom helped me in many ways as I prepared my book on The Locomotives of the Stockton & Darlington Railway for publication, and I was pleased that he was able to be present at the book's launch at the North Road Station Museum in late 1996.

He also stimulated my interest in the Pease family and the Religious Society of Friends in general, and was able to introduce me to many of the Darlington railway historians and members of the Darlington Railway Preservation Society.

Apart from his Quaker and railway interests, he was a man of many talents. As well as his ability in modern languages, he was a strong classicist and Latinist, and a rigorous critic. I received many good natured reprimands from him for my less than perfect use of language.

He introduced me in retrospect to the many early railway and other associated pioneers in the Quaker burial ground in Skinnergate. I owe so much to him, and am very glad that I knew him. I hope that Darlington appreciates what it has lost.

T R PEARCE

The Avenue,

Nunthorpe,

Middlesbrough.

Our thanks

Sir, - Richmond has just enjoyed four days of celebrations thanks to the 110th Richmond Meet.

What a wonderful way to prove that Richmond is alive and kicking! This jubilee Meet - the biggest Meet gathering for some years - will have created many lasting memories. What a superb way of combining the town's traditional bank holiday Meet with the country's jubilee celebrations.

As their guest this year, I have been astounded by the amount of work involved, the number of participating organisations and the army of volunteers needed to ensure a successful weekend.

My lasting memory is of the sheer sense of delight, enthusiasm and fun, which pervaded the whole celebration.

Thank you all for a brilliant series of events. Thank you for inviting me (and Rhoda), thank you for spoiling me (and Rhoda). But, most of all, thank you for caring and sharing.

I am now, more than ever, convinced that Richmond owes you alot.

You have done us proud and I hope that we, in turn, have done you proud.

Coun STUART PARSONS

Town Mayor,

Richmond.

Sir, - May I say thank you to those who made Middleham's jubilee celebrations such a success.

All members of the jubilee committee, the community groups they represented, friends and families (and the clerk) who worked hard and achieved much, but special thanks are due to the chairman, Coun Peter Swales, and Middleham's feast committee for their wonderful organisational skills.

ANNE WILKINSON

Mayor of Middleham.