I HAVE lived in the North-East all my life and I believe that it is the best place in the world. Like most people living here, I do not need the likes of Elton John or Chris Patten to tell me how good it is.

Where has the £2m for the Here. Now. campaign come from? Who selects/elects the people on these various money-wasting quangos?

Quangos have in the past brought/bought foreign companies to the area, like Siemans, Fujitsu and Sanyo. The cash spent on attracting them should have gone on encouraging local small business.

I can think of many good uses for this money. In Bishop Auckland, we have cameras which were erected at significant cost to reduce street crime. But these cameras cannot be manned full time because of lack of cash.

I object to this waste of money which, as a columnist in The Northern Echo suggested last week, is going now.here. - Name supplied, Bishop Auckland.

LITTER

WHEN will the people of this green and pleasant land wake up to the appalling deluge of litter that is being spread throughout our towns, villages and countryside?

We must all take responsibility for this mess. Litter picking days must be organised, involving all in the community. Will the long suffering silent majority finally shout that it has had enough of the litter louts? - BD Todd, Richmond.

Afghanistan

PETER Mullen does write a lot of nonsense. Perhaps he will tell us how and when the US "poured a billion dollars into North Korea" (Echo, Mar 12).

The US has done everything it can to frustrate a joining up of North and South Korea. It specialises in bribery, as we have seen recently in Pakistan.

I am proud to be numbered among the "chattering classes" that Mr Mullen raves on about. Has he any idea what it is like to fight in a war? Now the Brits led by Tony Blair will go to Afghanistan and there "might be casualties" - the understatement of the year.

Our boys of course, will, as ever, be defending the Empire - George W Bush's American Empire. It seems that all that bombing from a great height did not solve the problem after all. Many hundreds of innocent men, women and children were blasted and incinerated in the process, no doubt, but they are only "collateral damage".

Mr Mullen comments on Hitler, but he should remember it was Christians of the Protestant and Catholic faiths in Germany and other occupied countries who kept Hitler in power. Apart from Niemoller, can Mullen give us the names of three German clergymen who spoke out against Hitler? - Willis Collinson, Durham City.

THREE months ago, the Great War Leader Tony Blair informed us that the Afghanistan Taliban regime had been defeated. Now, 1,700 Royal Marines have been sent to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

The Royal Marines' mission in Afghanistan could well be successful. However, one thing is certain: Mr Blair's craven support for President Bush will end in blood and tears.

Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson had the intelligence to keep out of the Vietnam War in the 1960s. But Mr Blair is determined to ensure that British soldiers will be volunteered to play the role of America's Gurkhas in the next disaster that the US involves itself in. - John Gilmore, Bishop Auckland.

BISHOP AUCKLAND 1959

I AM researching a book about friendly and testimonial games played by Manchester United 1946-1976, and information about the game played with Bishop Auckland on April 30, 1959.

If anyone went to the game or has a press cutting or an original copy of the match programme, I would like to hear from them.

All letters will be answered and out-of-pocket expenses refunded. - Thomas Longworth, 20 Edge Lane Flats, Thornhill, Dewsbury, West Yorks. WF12 OQS.

HMS COLLINGWOOD

THE Fourth Annual Reunion of the HMS Collingwood Association will take place in Scarborough on the weekend of April 19-22.

Membership of the association is open to anyone who served at the training establishment in Hampshire. For details, send a couple of stamps to the address below. - Mike Crowe, Membership Secretary, HMS Collingwood Association, 7 Heath Road, Lake, Sandown, Isle of Wight. P036 8PG

PUBLIC SERVICES

I WOULD like to point out to Councillor Roderick Burtt of Darlington (HAS, Mar 19) that chucking more and more money at an ailing public service without tackling the root cause of its problems invariably makes matters worse.

Public spending on education has soared dramatically over recent decades, while educational standards have plummeted. The money has gone, not on paying teachers better and increasing their numbers, but on increasing bureaucracy, regulation and red tape.

The main thing wrong with education is not under-funding - it is the yawning gulf between education and the real world. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

TRAVELLERS

THE angry response of many Hawes people to the article "Travellers upset town" (Echo, Mar 20) was not due to the National Park seeking to move these socalled travellers as your follow-up piece the next day seems to imply, but rather that the opinions of Councillor John Blackie were presented as being shared by the entire community.

Clearly, they are not. To equate the effect on the local economy of one family staying quietly on a patch of waste ground with that of the foot-and-mouth epidemic is ridiculous and unnecessarily emotive.

Our main concern, however, is over the effect this publicity may have upon this family's children who are being educated at local schools. We fear that these ill-judged comments have made these children potential targets for ridicule, if not bullying, and believe them to be wholly inappropriate from someone who is on the Board of Governors at a school that the children attend. - Sara Mason and others, Hawes, North Yorks.