Letters - March 8, 2018

A little company can relieve loneliness

Loneliness is the child of time, slow-growing and almost invisible to the naked eye, but look deeper and its roots may already be vigorous and waiting to strike.

Loneliness has no smell, needs very little watering and, when it comes to nutrition, it draws its energy from the air and from the clock.

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Loneliness is a creeper whose habit it is to cling and what it clings to, it hurts.

It is a parasite but, more than that, its foliage brings a darkness to life, no less dispossessed than that of the grave.

“Why me?” A sufferer may ask. “What have I done to cause so many people to withdraw from my company?”

But withdraw they have and were you to ask them why, they too would be pressured to furnish a sensible reply, save for the matter of ageism perhaps.

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Loneliness is a hard thorn whose seeds are sown at birth and buried like acorns, waiting to germinate, and germinate they ultimately will.

Life is good and cheerfully moving along, when suddenly, society’s door slams shut in your face.

Loneliness has arrived and, with it, isolation. You are no longer part of the party, no longer to be included or thought of as a worthy invitee.

Loneliness has bloomed and, in that blooming, a new view of the world. A view from a room in which to sit and wait for a knock at the door that may never com. Loneliness, one might say, is in flower.

Few people, it seems, recognise loneliness for what it is.

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Even family members may miss the vital signs, overlooking entirely how even a short visit might weaken at least one link in a chain as strong as any across the ghostly shoulders of Scrooge’s partner Jacob Marley.

For that is how debilitating loneliness is, a burden that can so easily be relieved with a little love and a little precious company.

Joe Dawson

Address supplied

SHOW

Will it be an ‘honest’ finale?

Reading Anna Cryer’s article (The Gazette, February 28) on Coleen Nolan’s (pictured) appearance in a show called The Real Monty Ladies Night she doesn’t make it clear whether this is intended for the theatre or TV!

If it is the latter, I can only hope it’s a more honest production than the male version shown on the box. This was filmed before an audience at the London Palladium but when it came to the vital finale, where the men reveal all - this was only seen by the Palladium audience - the TV cameras merely showed a disappointing rear view!!

Neil Kendall

Stamford Avenue
South Shore

COUNCIL

Care needed with new enterprises

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I think that Blackpool Council needs to be very careful not to undermine existing businesses when it decides to open new enterprises using the Blackpool Entertainment Company (BEC) to do so.

I write this after reading in the Gazette (February 22) that The Hop pub (purchased by the council in December) is set to be re-opened by the BEC as ‘a community pub’ and the running of Cafe Dolce, on Abingdon Street, is being taken over by the Tower Coffee Company (which is a BEC brand).

The BEC is described as an “arms length organisation of the council which runs the Winter Gardens” and I fully support them in this aim.

However, in the broader context of supporting town centre businesses, I don’t feel the council is helping matters by supporting the opening (or re-opening) of enterprises in direct competition with existing town centre businesses.

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With the current fragile state of Britain’s High Street economy at present, existing businesses need support from the council, not more competition.

BEC managing director, Michael Williams, states that all the profit from these enterprises will help the Winter Gardens. And what if they make a loss?

J Birdsall

Shaw Road
South Shore

POLITICS

Why are MPs ‘more important’?

How is it possible that one group of public sector workers are restricted to a one per cent pay rise because of ‘austerity’ while another have enjoyed a 10 per cent pay rise in the past few years and this year has been awarded a 1.8 per cent rise?

Both paid for by the tax payers but apparently politicians are much more important than nurses, doctors, teachers and so on.

Molly 
Clare

via email