Letters - August 13, 2019

Recently, in a national paper, a well-respected person was so downbeat about the holiday season, I felt compelled to pen a response.

In it, Janet Street-Porter was supportive of the views of the protest group Extinction Rebellion, telling us, the people, to stop using air travel.

I was fortunate to retire at 50.

Since then, I have been a remorseless traveller, seeking out interesting historical places in Italy, Spain and elsewhere. Life is for living, so get out there and enjoy it.

Whatever the problems of air travel, people deserve a holiday break.

If you work hard and can afford a holiday then get away from miserable Britain to the sun and the fun.

The moment we had a spell of good weather, the pundits were out warning of dire consequences and peddling the same old rubbish about global warming.

Ignore these prophets of doom.

Let us get this into focus. Since the end of the last war, the British public have “never had it so good”, to quote Sir Harold Macmillan back in the 1950s.

Before the war, the working class were lucky to afford a day (just one day!) away to the seaside.

The advent of the jet engine has seen a revolution and people today can see the world in a way unthought of by their grandparents.

Maybe I have another 30 or so years to live, but I intend to make every day count and to ‘see the world’, cruising or flying.

I’m enjoying it now and I have the right, in a democracy, to make that choice.

Let’s also remember our leaders spend more time flying around the world to conferences in Davos or G7 meetings.

Let them first set the example and then we, the people, ‘might’ follow.

Get out, have a great holiday break, and forget Janet Street-Porter and Extinction Rebellion, and all those ‘miserables’ in the House of Commons.

They’ll all be lapping it up in posh European resorts.

Peter Asquith-Cowen

Address supplied

SOCIETY

Together let’s try to abolish racism

Racist behaviour is contradictory and hypocritical .

A racist person may object to sitting next to a person on a flight who has a different colour skin, but would he or she behave the same way in different circumstances?

I say to the racists in quite a point blank manner, if you or your family needed immediate life saving emergency treatment, would you object to a foreign person helping you?

Would you turn away a black firefighter to rescue your child or loved ones from a smoked-filled burning building ?

Would you refuse the emergency voluntary assistance from an off-duty foreign doctor whilst travelling on a flight or high speed train?

Would you refuse the help from a foreign police officer, paramedic, life guard or mountain rescue expert in your desperate hour of need?

In June 2018, many will recall the desperation of 12 children and their football coach trapped in a Thai river cave. The rescue was feared near impossible. Divers and rescue experts from around the world came together, they risked their own lives to save everyone of those children and their football coach.

“Although slavery may have been abolished, the crippling poison of racism still exists and the struggle still continues.” Harry Belafonte 1965.

Together let’s try and abolish racism and discrimination.

Stephen Pierre

Campaigner for social justice

BREXIT

One-size-fits-all doesn’t work

Re: Brexit. The EU is a one-size-fits-all government and that is a massive handicap for poorer countries like Greece. They have to play a game that is designed for the richer states of Germany, etc.

Phil Hanson

via email

ENVIRONMENT

It’s just all part

of an Ice Age

I do wish that climate changers had at least some sense of perspective.

For example, Ice Ages on Earth are thought to go back some 2.7 billion years, with the current Ice Age having started as recently as 40 million years ago, since when the ice sheets have advanced and retreated many, many times.

We are fortunate to live in one of the warmer periods between, which may continue or the ice may return.

There is no evidence that the brief and puny activities of mankind have any influence whatsoever upon the massive movements of the Ice Ages.

Arthur Quarmby

Address supplied

AIRSHOW

Where were the airshow bus stops?

As someone who moved to the Fylde area only recently can I ask why there were no signs to direct locals to places where they could catch a bus when the air show was on?

It is all very well to have temporary bus stops but we should have been given a clue as to where they were.

Alan Lowe

St Annes