Letters - November 14, 2018

I read with great interest and delight the article on Tuesday, November 6, in The Gazette about Alan Reid the CEO of Disability First.

I can’t think of anyone who is more suited to lead this charity than him. I have often wondered what happened to him - now I know.

I turn the clock back 40 years to the Ivy Leaf Club on Common Edge Road, Blackpool (no longer there).

This was an entertainment club which was run by a veteran entertainer Freddie Bent who employed Alan as an organist and who ran a children’s talent show every Sunday afternoon.

It was the meeting place for young talent of whom many went on to have a professional career in show business.

Cameron set up his own successful entertainment company plus other managements and they worked with Alan throughout their teen years.

Alan was in demand as a very fine musician and organist, and then disaster struck - his mini stalled on the M6 and he was nearly burned to death, fortunately his hands were saved but his years of skin grafts and mental torture must have taken their toll. But to read that he is married with three children and is now the CEO of Disability First brought a tear to my eye.

A much lesser man would have thrown the sponge in years ago.

His wonderful medical team and his dedicated mother (who supported him in everything he did) shows the character and calibre of the man, obviously supported by a good wife and family.

Betty Crichton

Somerset Avenue
Blackpool

BREXIT

A company in deep, deep trouble

Using the metaphor of David Cameron as company director, consider the following.

To placate a vociferous minority of shareholders, he agreed to promote a policy he did not agree with.

Against expectations he lost the vote against the new proposal.

Although previously promising to continue in his post, he promptly resigned. His replacement was not elected by the shareholders, but a small clique.

The new board continually quarrelled about how they could achieve the new policy. To gain more support, the new company director appealed to the shareholders to back her, they failed to do so. Now even more weakened, the director was then reliant on another small clique, not noted for compromise in negotiations.

The director could then stubbornly carry on attempting to provide solutions to what by now, by any criteria, are proving to be insoluble problems. Those shareholders who had swallowed the belief that the new policy would be effortlessly achieved, should now, along with others who had never fallen for this deliberate lie, be given a further opportunity to rescind this current and ongoing damaging policy.

Denis Lee

Ashton

SAFETY

Enough! Let’s give fireworks the rocket

As the smoke settles on another bonfire night surely it is about time that the Government introduced legislation ensuring that all bonfires are confined to organised events by councils and act as charity fund raisers and only on November 5.

The 11pm watershed for setting them off is constantly ignored and fire crews were ambushed by a gang of feral youths hurling fireworks at them - a scenario experienced by the emergency services around the country.

My local newsagents had its shop window shattered by an exploding firework thrown indiscriminately. Sadly his insurance will not cover the total cost of repair. Fireworks are attractively packaged for marketing reasons and I would recommend that mandatory graphic warnings should be displayed similar to those on cigarette packets alerting users of the serious injuries that can be caused.

Despite awareness campaigns and repeated safety warnings in the build up to bonfire night 4,436 individuals attended A & E Departments last year with injuries caused by fireworks - a statistic that has doubled in seven years.

We should also bear in mind the concern of pet owners, asthma sufferers and the elderly living alone and give fireworks a rocket.

Jim Oldcorn

Address supplied

TRANSPORT

Reasons for drop in visitors to town

The drop of visitors in Blackpool is caused by the town centre roadworks.

Talbot Road is a bomb site and visitors are saying they are not coming to Blackpool because of the traffic in town. The railways did not help also with all the works gong on.

Mr Simpson

Talbot Road
Blackpool