Letters

I WOULD like to say how nice Darlington town centre and roundabouts on the ring road look with all the flowers, particularly the GNER roundabout in Victoria Road.

It is just such a pity that the niceness does not spread to the outskirts of the town, ie round the supermarkets, and around the new Halfords and MFI. The litter is a disgrace and the weeds and thistles are terrible.

Why is it that when these places get built, the lovely shrubberies are created and promptly forgotten.

They get overgrown and the litter gets underneath and plastic bags flutter in the bushes, it is a total mess.- Mrs J E Morton, Hurworth Place, Darlington.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

WHAT a scandal and an utter affront to personal choice and freedom that greengrocer Steven Thorburn should be confronted by the over zealous officers of the trading standards department (Echo, July 7).

Mr Thorburn was clearly providing the service his customers wanted, namely selling them fruit and vegetables in a way they understood and were comfortable and happy with.

Why should Mr Thornburn or any other shopkeeper be accused of wrong doing and have their scales confiscated for honestly carrying out their trade? It is another example of euro madness.

Will Mr Thornburn's trading in pounds and ounces have some devastating effect on some highly paid official in Brussels? Will it cause the EU to crumble? Sadly, I think not.

Leave the honest traders alone, Sunderland Council. Spend your time on more urgent and important matters. - EA Moralee, Billingham

OLD FOLKS' HOMES

REGARDING the closure of homes for the elderly by Darlington Council, Mr Morris (Echo, July 17) states that people will be in a nicer environment.

I have personal knowledge of one of these homes facing closure. It is a good building worthy of investment. The staff are dedicated and hard-working. The residents and people attending day care are comfortable, well cared for, well fed and content. What could be nicer? - M Howe, Darlington.

TV ADS

I WRITE to deplore the odious sight of men's urinals as a background for TV advertising, made all the worse because it was not even clear what product was being advertised as only the name of the promoting company appeared. - AE Carr, Middleton St George.

PAEDOPHILES

MANY years ago children could roam free without parental control.

The reason for this was the severe laws that were in use. Kidnapping was a hanging offence and the birch was a good deterrent.

If these laws were reintroduced for paedophiles, these crimes would be drastically reduced, having the desired effect of moving the fear factor from the mothers to these evil people. - Ken Crisp, Easington Colliery.

WORLD CUP

IF SOUTH Africa does not get a re-vote to stage the 2006 World Cup it should be given the next 2010 event. England might have a chance after that if it has learnt its lesson on crowd behaviour. - N Tate, Harrowgate Village, Darlington.

ALCOHOLISM

MY HEART goes out to George Best (Echo, July 17).

As a "fellow sufferer", I understand 100 per cent what he is going through. I would never make front page news because I am not famous.

The only thing that George and I have in common is drink addiction. Most people like a drink, nobody loves a drunk.- Name and address supplied.

MS

MANY readers will have heard about the proposal from NICE, the Government's advisory body on health treatments.

It is proposed to stop prescribing the new beta interferon drugs for people with MS. This is heartbreaking news for people who have been waiting for treatment, sometimes for years, as a result of the NHS "postcode lottery".

NICE does not argue with the scientific evidence that these drugs work by cutting the number of attacks MS people suffer. But it says this is not enough to justify the cost.

True, the drugs are expensive, but so is MS. Most of the cost of MS attacks does not fall on the NHS but on social services and housing, on employers, social security and on the families of those affected.

We think this ruling is a great injustice; there are no other treatments for MS which alter the course of this terrible disease. - Mrs K Welch (on behalf of son John Welch, an MS sufferer now unable to write his own letters), Darlington.

RACISM

PETE Winstanley (HAS, July 21) obviously has a warped view of this world and its history if he thinks that the British are a nation of mongrels who should take enforced multi-racism lying down.

The English were in fact a nation of white European tribes - chiefly Celts, Angles and Normans who long managed to bury any cultural differences because of the unifying factor of race.

This being the case, Britain only really became gloriously multi-racial and heterogeneous in the 1950s when the first mass coloured immigration from Africa and Asia took place. - Andrew Lightfoot, Bridlington

FRANKIE FRAZER

I HAVE just read the letter from George Fenley, (HAS, July 22), regarding the Mike Amos article on Mad Frankie Frazer.

How on earth can this man judge Mike's story of the event at Spennymoor Boxing Club's prize-giving night when he was not even there?

I'm sure that had the evening been one little bit distasteful, glorifying the life of Frankie Frazer in any way, Mike Amos would have come down on it like a ton of bricks, being the journalist that he is.

I went to the evening feeling very apprehensive, but I need not have worried because throughout the whole talk to the young lads, Frazer described himself as a failure and he implored the lads not to look upon him as a hero.

He told the boys to be proud of themselves and to go out into the world and do good things.

- George Rowe, Houghton-le-Spring.