17/11/05

I object most strongly to the implication that leadership candidates should gain the support of a particular region to be successful. Such divisive suggestions do little to unify a political party.

The number of signatories is also meant to impress. However, to be really persuaded, one has to look at David Cameron's website where there are hundreds of significant Conservatives supporting his candidacy, many of them from the North-East.

The Conservative Party needs a quantum leap and new vision if it is to succeed. Mr Cameron will give us these. Mr Davis will give us more of the past. - Charles Johnson, Chairman Darlington Conservative Party.

SMOKING BAN

I AM writing on behalf of the British Lung Foundation and its Breathe Easy support groups to express our concern about the proposed partial ban on smoking in workplaces and enclosed public spaces rather than a total ban.

Why should workers in private clubs and "wet" pubs (where food is not served) be excluded from the protection a complete ban would offer? Thirty-five workers in the North-East die from the effects of second-hand smoke each year. Would this be allowed with other hazardous substances? Everyone has the right to work in a safe environment. Would you be happy breathing in 4,000 chemicals (60 of which are known or suspected of causing cancer) day after day, week after week, year after year?

The North-East has some of the poorest areas with some of the highest lung cancer rates in the country and yet about half of the pubs and clubs in the region will continue to be smoking venues if the Government gets its way.

I would urge anyone who supports the total ban to contact their MP this week to request a complete ban, something that 73 per cent of people in this region want. One of the easiest ways to do this is via (campaign for a smokefree North-East) at www.freshne.com. - Bev Wears, British Lung Foundation, Newcastle.

FIRE STRIKES

I AM saddened by the fire strikes in the West Midlands, although I understand the action to be a protest over cutbacks to the service provided to the public.

Here in County Durham and Darlington, there has been a reduction of 40 frontline firefighters in the last year. There are 11 wholetime appliances, of which six are crewed by four firefighters.

If an appliance carrying four firefighters pulls up at a house fire and the crew follows procedures laid down by brigade management, then the public should not expect a rescue to take place until a second appliance arrives. I would be interested in the reply given to the public by brigade management on the above matter. - Name and address supplied, County Durham.

PARKING

J RACE complains about the parking shambles in Bishop Auckland and has now opted to shop in Newton Aycliffe where parking is free (HAS, Nov 14).

J Race should try out the car parking madness in Darlington, where we are forced to pay ludicrious amounts just to shop for a couple of hours. Only then would he realise that parking in central Bishop Auckland is not too bad at all.

It is even worse at Darlington Memorial Hospital where out-patients and staff try to out do one another with manoeuvres in the car park that are usually only seen on the big screen via Hollywood. I never knew that we had so many driving stuntmen and women in town! The only way to turn up for a hospital appointment is to be dropped via a parachute from a plane. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

Shildon POOL

I CAN'T believe that, between them, Shildon town and Sedgefield borough councils have decided that repairing the leak in Shildon swimming pool is too expensive. Or is it another case of property developers wanting the site?

I used to meet the schoolchildren being escorted by teachers for swimming lessons and my mind went back to my own childhood. When I joined the Royal Navy in 1938, I couldn't swim a stroke. Fortunately, I was taught to swim and, on two occasions in the Mediterranean, I was part of a boat crew searching in the dark for survivors from ships that had been torpedoed. I had the terrible job of taking the identity discs from the necks of men floating upside down - it was their inability to swim that took them, not their wounds.

In 1941, my ship was dive-bombed and sunk. I survived the hours in the water thanks to my pre-war training.

I used to look at those kids going to that pool and I thanked those physical training instructors who taught me to swim. I feel very aggrieved that kids could be robbed by unthinking councillors who may have thought twice had they served at sea during the war and seen the needless loss of life through the inability to swim. - Fred Evans, Shildon.

WAR HERO

I SOMETIMES have difficulty believing the evidence of my own eyes (Echo, Nov 4). I refer to the appalling facts in the case of Noel Bevan of Sunderland, a true Englishman and a war hero, aged 84.

After a lifetime of service to this country, he is being harassed with threats of deportation over some minor bureaucratic technicality. I think the situation is absolutely abhorrent and outrageous - why there has not been a massive public outcry about it I fail to understand.

How can they - the authorities concerned - be allowed to get away with this despicable treatment of a frail, elderly gentleman of outstandingly good character?

Why don't they extend the same kind of vigilance to the numerous terrorist sympathisers and instigators in our midst?

There is a very ugly trend in this country today which we need to consider very carefully while we still have the opportunity to do something about it. - T Kelly, Crook.

HEADTEACHER

IT WAS with dismay that I read (Echo, Nov 8) about a Carlisle headteacher being suspended for rescuing a frightened ten-year-old girl from a dark store room where two boys had her trapped.

Has society gone mad? No wonder we have a shortage of good teachers and no wonder we have so many disruptive children.

The parents of one of the boys, who claimed their son's arm had been bruised by the teacher, should have scolded the boy instead of taking a digital photograph to the school showing bruising on his arm.

We are becoming a nanny state. Surely the authorities are able to reinstate this man without delay as he was only doing his duty as a good headteacher. - Name and address supplied.

EASINGTON

EASINGTON Council deserves a pat on the back. Recently it did a grand job with lots of extra access points for invalid scooters on the pavements in Horden. On the down side, selfish motorists regularly park in front of them. - D Cook, Horden.