Letters: January 12, 2017

Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Orbital service plea

THERE were two very interesting articles in Saturday’s SA.

One was a letter from the managing director of Thamesdown Transport, Mr Jenkins, referring to the new 1/1A service from Middleleaze to the Great Western Hospital.

He hopes the new service will be a success. Those of us who are regular users of this service hope so as well and that we won’t be left standing in the cold or wet waiting for a late running bus - our bus shelter at Orkney Close bus stop was removed some years ago for whatever reason and was never replaced.

Secondly, Mr Oliver, the commercial director, lists all the services that now serve the Orbital Shopping Centre, including the extended service 12 linking Blunsdon and Highworth to the Orbital Centre.

But if you live in West Swindon there is no direct service to the Orbital Centre and, despite the fact that there are a number of existing and new estates in the West Swindon area, Thamesdown Transport does not seem interested in those of us who would like to see Service 19 extended to the Orbital Centre.

It wouldn’t need to operate around Taw Hill or Redhouse, as they already have good connections, just via Moredon.

Perhaps Mr Jenkins or Mr Oliver would write to the letters page informing us why the company is reluctant to extend service 19 beyond Sparcells. I look forward to a reply.

M BRADFORD

Shaw, Swindon

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Health Hydro memories

MILTON Road Swimming Baths hold memories for me. I met my husband at a dance at Mcilroys on November 27, 1964. He asked me for a dance and walked me home.

He then asked me for a date, suggesting that we met at the swimming baths. I walked the town in November trying to buy a swimming costume and it cost me a week’s wages.

I duly went to Milton Road on the Wednesday and went up to the balcony to see if I could see him, I thought, ‘that is him.’

I went to change into my new green swimsuit. I entered the baths to find that it was not the young man that I thought it was.

But it all worked out well and he proposed to me on Boxing Day. I said yes. My mother said that he wanted to see what he was getting.

I never wore the swimsuit again, but we got married a year later and are still together after more than 50 years.

The other memory is when I was ten years old. I went swimming with my friends in the Small Baths. The changing cubicles were around the sides of the baths and we got dressed ready to go home, but one of my friends walked across the end corner of the baths and fell in!

My other friend went to get some dry clothes for her. We waited two hours as people did not have phones.

My friend and I got back into the baths. I have never felt so cold. The man in the office told us to get out and sit in his nice warm office to wait for her mother to bring the clothes.

JANET WOODHAM

Scotby Avenue, Old Town, Swindon

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These are the facts

I AM in awe of the talent of Jeff Adams to assert something as fact when it clearly is not.

He opines that “for a so called political commentator (he means me) to state that the Queen is not political beggars belief.”

As I wasn’t aware I had made such a claim in either of my two letters I checked. Lo and behold, I didn’t say anything of the sort.

Jeff accuses me of ignoring his “line of argument that the Queen is obviously following a long tradition of so-called constitutional monarchs who meddle in politics”; again I thought I had addressed this matter and so I looked back at my previous two letters.

Lo and behold, I had, offering my view that the Queen’s role as an individual is to offer counsel and advice and, while she does indeed reign, she does not rule. She cannot summon the Prime Minister to tell him/her what to do.

I also offered the view that Jeff was wrong to assert that the Windsors are the richest land-owning family in the world; Jeff avoids having to admit he was wrong in asserting this as a ‘fact’ - and when challenged on his claim the Queen owns Buckingham Palace he displayed his capacity to change tack mid stream by referring to her as a “rogue tenant” - so which is it, is the Queen the owner or is she a tenant?.

In his latest work of fiction Jeff attempts to divert attention away from his two previous gaffes by introducing a piece of sophistry - in Jeff’s world, the royal family (ie the Queen) could make a claim to legal ownership of Buckingham Palace (Jeff uses Latin to add force to this specious argument - de jure, which only means ‘in law’) whereas the reality is that Jeff has no evidence to support such a claim.

I doubt the Queen would wish to be saddled with the cost of refurbishing Buckingham Palace and is probably at ease with the palace remaining the property of The Crown.

Where Jeff and I can agree is that Prince Charles often indulges his whims by lobbying politicians in favour of causes especially dear to him. His association with some of these causes is as a patron or president. Would Jeff rather the prince was a mere figurehead or would he prefer him to be an active supporter?

Finally, Jeff tells us that the monarchy costs 100 times more that the current popular Irish President to which I can only repeat a phrase often used by my late mother when I said something obscure: “What does that have to with the price of fish?”

DES MORGAN

Caraway Drive, Swindon

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Majority for Brexit

IT’S BEEN nearly seven months since the Referendum and we still have those who continually moan about the result.

Last week we had Adam Poole complaining about MP Justin Tomlinson. If I got it right, he wanted people who have been living in the EU for more than 15 years to be entitled to vote in the referendum. Sorry, but if they’re not residing in this country why should they have a say on the things that impact us and not them.

He also stated that there were in total 3.8 million people. But how would they have voted? I have friends who have a house in Spain and spend a lot of time there but even they voted to leave, so there was no guarantee that these 3.8 million voters would have made any difference.

Adam claimed only 26 per cent of the country voted to leave. I take it he got that wrong. We all know it was 37 per cent.

He wanted to know how Justin Tomlinson can claim this was a clear majority. Simple, the remainers only ever focus on the 52/48 per cent vote or the 37/34 per cent who voted.

They never focus on the 29 per cent who didn’t vote. The total number that didn’t go to polls was 9.7 million. Remember the first referendum in the 1970s when Harold Wilson’s Labour Government stated that those who don’t vote are deemed to be for the majority. If you don’t vote you must accept the outcome.

Why did 9.7 million not bother going to vote? Were they too busy or too lazy or too busy playing on their computers or was it that they could not care less if we remained or left and were happy sit back and go along with the majority?

In that case the real result of the referendum, whether you like it or not, is 66 per cent of the electorate voted to leave and only 34 per cent to remain.

I went to Eindhoven, in Holland for the New Year and I was overwhelmed by the Dutch who kept saying, ‘You lucky English you got out of it. It’s our turn next.’

So for remainers, keep your eye on Holland and watch this space.

ALLAN WOODHAM

Nythe, Swindon

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Clinicians know best

YOUR article (SA 6.1.17) describes yet another bureaucratic interference in the system of patients being referred by the GP to hospital.

Clinicians should never allow ‘lay management’ to interfere in what is a purely clinical matter. There may be many reasons why a GP wants to refer a patient to a consultant (sometimes to allay fears) and no lay person (or standard protocol) is ever qualified to judge who should – or should not – be referred.

Patients’ problems can only be judged by professionally qualified practitioners. Clinicians must continue to command ownership of all clinical matters.

MALCOLM MORRISON

Retired Surgeon

Prospect Hill, Swindon