Letters

WITH regard to Harry Mead's column (Echo, Feb 14), I am sorry to hear he doesn't share the "general rapture" of yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur's feat. But surely he has drawn entirely the wrong comparison.

Yes, I agree with the sentiments about poor and single parents and people caring for terminally-relatives. But surely the comparison should be with greedy footballers who have done no more than kick a ball, popstars who mime to other people's songs and TV and film actors/presenters who do very little and are paid a fortune and are worshipped like gods.

Ellen MacArthur is a heroine by anyone's standards when you think of what she has achieved and how she started out. - James Benbow, Redcar.

PETER MULLEN

DO any of your readers, apart from myself, after reading Peter Mullen's weekly diatribe, get the feeling that he is out of his time and would be much happier living in Pinochet's Chile or Franco's Spain?

In a recent column he could barely conceal his disdain for the Holocaust ceremonies and then went on to vent his spleen on Communism in general and two writers, Shaw and Wells, much more capable than himself.

He claims "upwards of 40 million Russian workers were killed in the interests of the Russian revolution". Perhaps he could quote the authority for these figures? I suppose he includes the Tsar, his family, and the royal "hangers-on" in this 40 million?

People do get killed in revolutions - see Oliver Cromwell, George Washington et al. It was not unnoticed that Mullen failed to mention other more recent atrocities carried out by the western world.

For example, the US with its atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki when it was well known that these would kill and maim thousands of innocent women and children, and later, in Vietnam, where millions of Vietnamese were butchered and maimed with high explosives and Agent Orange. And I haven't even counted in what they did in Cambodia.

As for the British, we have the deliberate destruction of Dresden when the war was almost over and, more recently, a relatively minor case where British troops landed in Sierra Leone and butchered 25 residents of that country. Can you imagine Sierra Leone troops arriving in England and butchering 25 Britons? Of course not - they're black aren't they ? And as Peter Mullen said not long ago they should be subject to "benevolent dictatorship".

Presumably, Peter Mullen believes that revolutions when you kill your own, are bad, but wars, when you kill people who are not, are acceptable? - Willis Collinson, Durham City.

BUS TOKENS

COULD someone please explain to me how giving a free half fare bus pass makes travel cheaper for the elderly? The pensioner still has to pay half fare. With tokens, you get £30 worth (after paying your initial £5 deposit) of free travel.

You also have a choice with tokens. With the bus pass, the pensioner has to get to a bus stand, wait for transport, travel back with their shopping and make their way home carrying their parcels.

With tokens you book a taxi to your door and back.

The local authority had no right to take away our choice. - Shirley Barker, Crook.

STAR WARS

WHAT a curious letter from P Winstanley (HAS, Feb 15) alleging Mr J Watkins saw the Americans as goodies. Mr Watkins made no such claim, he merely wishes to protect his family from an unannounced nuclear airburst and if people realised just what that entailed, they would want exactly the same.

During the Cold War, Russia had not the slightest reason to launch an attack on us, but that did not stop it targeting Britain with 300 multiple warheads.

Mr Winstanley seems to see Star Wars as some sort of offensive strategy instead of the purely defensive system it really is, a mistake that would cost us dearly if we did sustain a nuclear attack. - Gordon Morrison, Newton Aycliffe.

RE W Collinson's letter (HAS, Feb 12) and his anti-American rhetoric. Why is he silent on the fact that Russia still has a huge arsenal of Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles, of which 6,000 are in ready to launch mode and can be set for targeting in two minutes?

Of these, 300 are reserved for Britain. As all our nuclear power stations are on the list of targets, why doesn't W Collinson object to Hartlepool nuclear power station or Sellafield? They will attract multiple warheads as surely as Fylingdales.

Why is he silent about the fact that Russia has supplied China with parts and know-how to build up its own nuclear capability, and Saddam Hussein is preparing a nuclear missile programme courtesy of Russian scientists.

As to Roosevelt, at the start of the Second World War, America had an isolationist policy then born of the fact that it had taken in refugees from wars and did not want American citizens burned in any more wars.

I can remember after the Second World War American giving us Marshall Aid and Russia telling us it was going to bury us. - Jim Watkins, Darlington.

PTE BEASLEY

I AM trying to trace any relatives or descendants of a soldier who died in France in the First World War. He was Private J Beasley who served with the 15th (The Kings) Hussars which I believe was a regiment recruited in the North-East. - Peter Thorne, 0208-3379554.

PILOTS' SERVICE

MAY I take this opportunity to thank Spennymoor Town Council, the mayor, town clerk, Royal British Legion, BAFA, ACA, WAAF, RAFA and all organisations who took part in the service on Wednesday, February 14, to commemorate pilots John Porter and Clifford Scott who were killed at Tudhoe in 1942.

Special thanks to Mr David Thompson, Arnold Sanderson, parade master, the Rev Martin Wray; to the schoolchildren and to the veterans of the war for your attendance. - Harry Spence, Tudhoe.