THE recent sad loss of HRH Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother must refocus attention on the role of the Royal Family in the UK. Is it time for constitutional change?

Looking back over history, there has seldom been a century where royal marriage with a suitor from mainland Europe has not changed the lineage of the first family of the UK. They are probably more European than most of us, yet they remain very firmly the British Royal Family.

The argument that joining the euro will cause us to lose our sovereignty is just a red herring. Maybe the Royal Family will change and become more like other European royals and cost us less, but is that not what most of modern Britain wants? The Queen Mother was £7m in debt.

Changing to using euro notes and coins has nothing to do with keeping or losing the sovereignty of the UK, but everything to do with jobs and trading our goods on an equal footing within Europe and the rest of the world.

Those who continue to argue against the UK joining the euro for non-economic reasons must face the consequences of the danger of the UK falling behind other growing superpowers because we have lost trade and are poorer.

Then maybe the Royal Family will all have to go because we can't afford to keep them. - Muriel Green, Whitley Bay.

WITH the Queen Mother's funeral over, is it not time for a different outlook on Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles? Surely it is time for them to marry in a church ceremony.

The Royals sending them away for six months caused all this. Charles went to sea, and Camilla, on the rebound, married someone else. - CM Johnson, Bedale.

EUROPE

JOHN Elliott, Business for Sterling, writes (Echo, Apr 3) that our joining the eurozone would be disastrous.

Yet, each week national and local newspapers print facts which show that our exclusion would be disastrous. HG Philips of Tyneside is one of a steadily growing number of companies unwilling to pay the huge costs of currency exchange.

The UK economy has half our total trade and services with Europe's 370 million customers (four times more than with the US).

Getting out of Europe would decimate that thriving trade, reduce GNP by two per cent a year, lead to the emigration of thousands of inward investor firms and threaten one in nine British jobs.

UK takehome pay may be higher than elsewhere, but there are gross inequalities (male:female and skilled:unskilled) which enlightened European legislation is pressing us to rectify.

British working hours are comparatively long and our productivity records unimpressive.

As for giving up the pound, Mr Elliott's sterling has long been locked in with dollars and yens and Deutschmarks. Let's rely on facts, Mr Elliott, not fallacies and out of date mystique. - DJ Whittaker, Richmond.

THE Government has told Parliament and the country that it is in favour of joining the eurozone in principle, yet strangely, and following repeated inquiries, I cannot obtain an answer from Peter Hain, Minister for Europe, as to their party's policy on the following:

Do we want our savings, assets, taxation, interest rates, exchange rate, public spending decisions, the transfer of our gold and money reserves to the ECB in Frankfurt and, in fact, the complete direction of the UK economy to be controlled by people we cannot vote for now, or at any time in the future, who cannot be dismissed through the polls?

I wonder what a Minister for Europe is for if he is incapable of answering this simple question on the political implications of joining the euro. - G Wood, Democracy Movement.

IT is almost unbelievable that the press officer for the UK Independence Party churns out (Echo, Apr 3) exactly the same utterances about one of Britain's most respected statesmen as the Referendum Party did before it suffered defeat in the 1997 election.

The Daily Telegraph published an advertisement by the Referendum Party in January 1997 which quoted Edward Heath saying: "There is no question of any erosion of essential national sovereignty in the 1971 White Paper."

This was, however, only half of a statement which, in full, continued - after a semi-colon - "what is proposed is a sharing and an enlargement of individual sovereignties in the general interest."

The Daily Telegraph graciously printed Sir Edward's full reply to the allegations in the advertisement. This should have settled the question of any treachery once and for all.

Sir Edward cited documentary evidence from his speeches at conferences and in the House of Commons right through the 1960s and 1970s in which his views on sovereignty and political union were open and consistent. - E Whittaker, Richmond.

GEORGE HUDSON

I WAS interested to read Harry Mead's review of Robert Beaumont's book on George Hudson (1800-1871), The Railway King (Echo, Apr 2).

In the early 1950s, George Hudson's story was told in a television play called Sounding Brass.

The play was shown on a Sunday night with a repeat on Thursday (the day of cosy telly). That fine actor Edward Chapman played the part of Hudson.

I remember reading in newspapers at the time that Edward Chapman excelled in a part he could really get his teeth into.

In the play, the Hudson character was fond of saying: "Sunday trains will run." - LD Wilson, Guisborough.