FLOODS

I WONDER if I might be so bold as to express the thanks of the community for the sterling work of our public servants during the rain and floods.

Many worked in very difficult and atrocious conditions to hold back the elements, alas in vain in many situations.

To all our public servants, at all levels, I am sure we wish to offer them our thanks and gratitude. They have faced impossible and previously unknown conditions. They have enabled roads to be re-opened and public services to be re-connected. They have sought to enable life to return to normal as soon as possible.

Second, on behalf of the community can I express our shared grief to those whose businesses and especially those whose homes were flooded and remain waterlogged. In my travels since the waters have subsided, many have borne testimony to the support and friendship of neighbours at a very difficult time. If there is one blessing that this crisis has engendered it is a renewed sense of neighbourliness and true community spirit.

As we face the future may we as businesses, farms, community groups and families endeavour to support those whose lives have been ravaged by the recent water and floods.

I am sure that we will endeavour to do all to help one another. Although the waters may have receded may those who have suffered displacement not recede from our thoughts, love and prayers.

Paradoxically, the water that quite literally divided Northallerton may prove in the long term to be a source of blessing which unites us as we work together for the good of all the community. In the meantime we can only hope. - Rev Keith M Phipps, Northallerton.

POPPY DAY

I WOULD like to ask your readers to show some respect to the courageous British soldiers who gave their lives for king and country by wearing a poppy and attending a Memorial Service on Remembrance Day.

These brave troops shall never be forgotten and it is up to people like ourselves to tell our children and future grandchildren about their heroic actions. The trumpets of yesteryear are still blowing proudly for them here today. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

DISCRIMINATION

LESS than 100 years ago, people of mainly ethnic African origin were considered to have only a simple nervous system and a brain about the size of a walnut. On plain food and given heat and shelter, they enjoyed long hours of menial work.

Whipping "sense" into a woman, beating her for disobedience, making her do without pocket money, was tolerated behaviour of chauvinist males 40 years ago.

Can we see in 40 years time, looking back with a better perspective, that those of us with brain and emotional disorders, (and it can hit anyone) that it was wrong to separate out some of society and treat them badly because of their weakness and lack of discrimination law protection? - L Grey, Middleton-in-Teesdale.

DARLINGTON FOOTBALL CLUB

AS Darlington are now in the lower half of the table and the crowds have dropped by over 2,500 is George Reynolds prepared to change his policy of not paying transfers, signing on fees or dealing with agents?

I expect not. However, judging by the standard of football on offer I expect the crowds to continue to drop along with our league position. When George took over at the Exeter game, he promised a new stadium and Premier League football within five years.

OK, the new stadium has started but if we cannot fill Feethams every week how do we expect to fill a new stadium?

The crowds are directly related to the quality of football on show. In July the players' wages were published in the Echo and this resulted in the best players and manager leaving the club.

How do we expect to attract quality players to the club in the future if it is the board's policy to publish their wages when things don't go well on the pitch?

In the same article, it was stated that George intended to bring in top name players for the new season and that they would be of the highest calibre. This is yet to be seen. - T Herat, Darlington.

ENVIRONMENT

WE are constantly being reminded of the damaging effects that greenhouse gases are having on the environment.

For thousands of years, volcanoes have been spewing gases into the atmosphere, we have had the industrial revolution and a world war when vast amounts of damaging gases were pumped into the atmosphere.

However, it is only within the past 20 years or so that climate change has become so apparent. In this time aircraft usage has increased enormously and as most aircraft fly above the earth's atmosphere, presumably the subsequent gases have no means of escape.

This surely, could have far more damaging effects on the world's climate than earth-born pollutants which normally come back down in the form of acid rain. - Stephen Parnaby, Scarborough.

BEGGING

WE have been officially advised to give nothing to street beggars because "86 per cent of them have some addiction or other", and would be better in a hostel, driven there presumably by starvation and neglect.

Such positive statistics of course must be accepted. But how do you know whether the person asking for your help is not one of the remaining 14 per cent; or if there is enough hostel accommodation in your area for all the homeless anyway?

Some of those I have spoken to have told me that there was never room for them when they applied. And even if most of them have an addiction, are you necessarily encouraging it by giving money? Even addicts have to eat.

"Some readily find out that where there is distress, there is vice and easily discover the crime of feeding the lazy or encouraging the dissolute. To promote vice is certainly unlawful; but we do not always encourage vice when we relieve the vicious." (Dr Johnson).

It ought to be enough that our help is asked. Who is qualified to decide whether a person's sins outweigh their miseries but God alone, who commands us to give aims to those in need? - Rev TJ Towers, Langley Park.