Letter from Roger Harvey (From Swindon Advertiser)

Letter from Roger Harvey

12:28pm Wednesday 17th March 2010 in

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NOT so long ago I visited Wootton Bassett on a week day afternoon and noticed a small number of Royal British Legion waiting near the Post Office.

Returning to the High Street from the library a little later I found that all traffic had stopped and the Legion had formed up on either side of the road. Soon, a small funeral procession appeared and members of the Legion and any of the public who happened to be around showed their respect for the dead in a traditional and dignified fashion.

More recently, also on a weekday afternoon, I had cause to drive through Wootton Bassett on my way to Calne and got to Wootton Bassett just as the traffic was being stopped and decided to park in Borough Fields. I walked up to the High Street and could hardly believe what I saw.

Surely it is not right for TV companies to have so many intrusive cameras there. Neither is it respectful to the dead for people, relatives or not, to scramble about trying to place or throw flowers on the hearses.

On Saturday afternoon what appeared to be the sale of small Union Flags took place from a table five yards from Sainsbury’s front door. A tasteless slushy song interspersed with trumpeted blasts of the Last Post came from a CD. Ironically, (if you think about it) a notice proclaimed that all this was for Afghan Heroes. Dreadful.

On Sunday evening a BBC news reporter told the nation that the motorcyclists who had destroyed the afternoon peace of Wootton Bassett had done so to show their respect for the ‘fallen’.

The sooner the military find an alternative route to Oxford the better.

ROGER HARVEY

Harris Road

Ashton Keynes

Swindon