Hear all sides

THE latest Government move to avoid nightclub drug related deaths is urging club owners and promoters to take more action to try and prevent further deaths.

The first move should come from the young people who go to these clubs.

Since the drug related death of Leah Betts a few years ago some young people are still dabbling in drugs. Others think their so-called drug culture is the best thing since sliced bread.

Their attitude is it will never happen to me (but it happens every day to others). It may be their turn next time, but then it will be too late. They will have left behind sorrow and heartbreak within family and friends' lives.

It is up to the youth in today's society to say no to drug pushers. One tablet may end your life. It is not worth the risk.

Think for one moment that with a bit of luck and the right attitude to life you may have another 50 or 60 years to live.

It is better than trying to end it in a moment of madness in the prime of your life. - Jack Amos, Willington.

YOUR comment (Echo, Mar 8) questions the wisdom of the Government's soft option on drugs.

The drug issue is one of the biggest problems that faces the future and the very survival of the nation, so why does the Government trivialise the issue with such insults?

The problem with drugs and those who push their filth is an issue that questions the sort of offence it should be categorised under and at the moment the pendulum is swinging in the wrong direction. Drugs kill, drugs are the biggest cause of crime, they are destroying the lives of many people, young and old. So why do we pretend it is any other than what it is? The scourge of us all.

If you wish to rid your home or anywhere else of vermin, you fumigate the building or premises. You don't feed them or give them succour. - John Young, Crook.

HEALTH SERVICE

RECENTLY released NHS performance indicators for County Durham and Darlington Health Authority provide further evidence of the crisis in social care across the region.

The statistics show for the first time that 6.9 per cent of all discharged patients are re-admitted as an emergency within a month.

This is a dreadful situation for patients across County Durham - not only are Durham's residents waiting too long to be seen, but there is clear evidence that many are being sent home from hospital too soon because their beds are needed.

Labour's chronic mismanagement of the care home sector means County Durham's hospitals have their beds blocked by patients who have nowhere else to go.

Hospitals are under enormous pressure to discharge patients as quickly as possible, yet 6.9 per cent of patients end up back in hospital as an emergency within a month, a rise of 3.7 per cent in the last year across County Durham & Darlington Health Authority.

Labour's failure to tackle the care home crisis and rising waiting lists has resulted in bed blocking and increased re-admission rates. - Michael Fishwick, Durham City Conservatives.

CHARITY APPEAL

MAY I invite people working in local charities and voluntary groups to consider taking part in Alexandra Rose Day activities this summer?

We are a national charity formed as a result of Britain's very first Flag Day in 1912, and we work exclusively to help local community groups and voluntary organisations to raise funds for their own good cause, through a national street collection and through a series of raffles. Our street collection takes place in June each year, and Alexandra Rose Day undertakes the administration and provides all the materials (boxes, stickers, promotional literature) that a local charity would need to participate in fund raising in its own community. Our partner charities retain 80 per cent of all funds raised for their own good cause.

On the same basis, ARD supplies raffle tickets (currently for a Jubilee Raffle in May), and again, any local organisation taking part retains 80 per cent of all proceeds.

We already have an established national network of partner charities, but we do have some vacancies in your area. In this, our ninetieth year, we should be delighted to help local charities make an especially big impact. Our only stipulation for participation is that a local group - whether a registered charity or not should have a 'people caring' emphasis which is in keeping with the original tradition established by Queen Alexandra in 1912.

Local organisers who require further information should contact Alexandra Rose Day at 2a Ferry Road, London SW13 9RX (Telephone: 020 8748 4824; www.alexandraroseday.org.uk) - The Lady Grade Vice President, Alexandra Rose Day.

MILLOM MEMORIES

IT was with great interest I read Mike Amos's account of that much maligned Cumbrian Town of Millom (John North, Mar 7).

During 1943-44 I was stationed a few miles north in a small village called Bootle, at a Fleet Air Arm Base by the name of HMS Macaw.

Millom was our nearest town for entertainment. Millom's entertainment consisted of The Palladium cinema, and a couple of public houses. I was lucky to be adopted by a local family. Strangely, Mr. Usher, the father of this family, was a gentleman's tailor. They were simply wonderful people, similar to Norman Nicholson's family.

I spent many wonderful weekends at the shop in Wellington Street. Millom was a very busy town then, with the iron works and the quarry at full swing. The RAF had a base not far away too. Back in Bootle, my billet in HMS Macaw looked out at Black Combe.

On your rail journey back to the North-East you missed out on Bootle Station, which in war days was our only means of getting home. - Arthur Makepeace, Ferryhill.