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Letters - September 18
Inset days anger I am writing again about teacher's inset days, in reply to the letter from your
correspondent (The Gazette, September 15) and their response to my earlier letter on the subject. (The Gazette, September 6).
The point of my letter – the inconvenience and cost caused to other people because of them – wasn't even mentioned nor replied to.
Unfortunately, nobody waves a magic wand with regards to anybody else's job either, so why should teachers think they are any different?
Consider doctors, nurses, police and the emergency services from the same public
sector – and I am not saying that teachers don't work as hard as these occupations.
We all have our priorities but none of these workers get inset days (I bet they wished they could) nor six weeks at home in the summer to prepare for the next year's work.
The majority of jobs are an ongoing process with problems and stress surrounding them every day in the workplace.
The other mitigating factor for teachers is that they don't have the same problems with childcare as the rest of us, as they are off work for six weeks during the summer at the same time as their children.
The financial cost of inset days for most
parents is tremendous, particularly when an inset day can be taken in a school holiday.
Would somebody please answer my question and tell me why don't teachers take their inset days in the school holidays? This is all I want to know.
Mrs D J Kay
Higher Moor Farm
Low Moor Road
Blackpool
Don't let Germans in parade
Robert McDougall's belief that ex-German soldiers who fought in the Second World War should, in "a spirit of global love" be invited to take part in this year's
Remembrance Parade (The Gazette,
September 13) demonstrates gross ignorance
After the war the view was peddled that the Holocaust and other appalling atrocities were the sole work of fanatical SS troops.
To this day many still believe this despite evidence to the contrary.
To suggest, therefore, that
ex-German soldiers, wearing their uniforms and medals, should
parade with our own ex-servicemen is ludicrous.
We could never know if any of those taking part had, during the war, been members of units that carried out a deliberate policy to murder the innocent and the
defenceless.
Barry Clayton
Fieldfare Close
Cleveleys
Say no to scheme
I have to wholeheartedly agree with Mrs J Rushforth's letter about the introduction of controlled parking on
Torsway Avenue and surrounding roads (The Gazette, September 15).
I too, live on Torsway about half way down and have never been affected by nurses or otherwise parking outside my house. This is another of the council's harebrained schemes to make more money out of residents.
There is currently a
petition you can sign against the plans.
As Mrs Rushforth said there are three to four people who want residents only parking and yet we are all being made to suffer. All too often in this country we let ourselves be railroaded into something and then turn around and ask why.
L GEDDES
TorswayAvenue,
Blackpool
Real cost of eating meat
Animal campaigning group Viva! is holding its annual Veggie Month highlighting the toll that eating meat and dairy has not only on farmed animals, but also animals in the wild.
You might ask what has eating a beef burger got to do with killing monkeys? The answer is lots!
It's a little known fact, but the meat and dairy industries are the number one cause of loss of
biodiversity around the world.
Eating a burger doesn't just cost the life of the cow, it also costs the lives of innumerable wild animals by destroying their natural habitat through ranching and clearing land to grow crops to feed farmed animals.
Europe imports 18 million tons of soya every year from cleared land in the Amazon; almost all of it used to feed animals. Our meat and dairy rich Western diets mean that we are literally munching our way through the rainforest.
The reality is that by going veggie, the average Brit not only saves the lives of 11,047 animals in a lifetime, but also a whole jungle's worth of wild animals, too!
For more information hit www.viva.org.uk
Justin Kerswell
Campaigns Manager
Viva!
Sort out street nuisance in town
I quite agree with John Pate's letter on the state of Blackpool (The Gazette, September 11).
Who is upholding our rules and regulations regarding street trading?
I have been harassed into
buying lucky heather, confronted by people selling rag mags and pestered to buy cut price night club tickets.
So where are the trading
standards officers enforcing these new laws that cost a lot of money to bring in?
Tom B Brenning
Hull Road, Blackpool
Stop waste of fuel payment
We are thankful to get help with home heating costs.
However, I wish these payments were made three times a year instead of the lump sum that is so easily frittered away by irresponsible people.
That would ensure that at least three of our months bills could be paid.
I have my heating unit on low in this wet but warm weather and I have a coal fire for emergencies as well as a hot water bottle, bed socks and hot beverages.
Joyce Phillips
Draycot Avenue, Blackpool
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Wednesday 30 May 2012
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