letters – Page 36 – The NEN – North Edinburgh News

Royal Victoria Hospital: heritage worth saving

I am the editor of www.craigleithhill.co.uk. Amongst other historical information on the Craigleith district I have included a history of the Royal Victoria Hospital.

My interest with the RVH site is the B listed Admin Block which hopefully the planners are going to retain. This building was built in the 1906 and the design was overseen by the pioneer of Tuberculosis treatment Dr Philip. I am hoping that this building with its superb acid stained beams (see my web site) and superb wood panelled conference room could be retained with the history of the RVH and in memory of Dr Philip who was a pioneer in the treatment of TB.

There are many wall plaques still retained in the entrance way to the old RVH which could well find a new home in this building. The building would be ideal as a conference room for NHS meetings as well as Community Council meetings.

Alan Ross

Letter: In the public interest

Dear Editor

In the main, the wealth of the nation is represented by the amount of products made by the people of the UK.

After paying wages and other costs the remainder is the owner’s profit, so it follows that the owner’s aim is to get as much produced for as little as possible; for the workers, their aim is to get better wages, working conditions and job security.

Given the fantastic profits being made by many industries, and the disgraceful salaries and bonuses being handed out to top management, it shows the distribution of wealth is very one-sided. The interests of owners and management as helped by having supporters in top political positions.

If the position was reversed, and workers had the overwhelming support of their political representatives, it would be a fair and just situation in that the interests of the majority of the population takes precedent over the very few. These interests would go beyond asking the employers for a few extra pounds in wages that – in a very short time – is swallowed up in rising prices.

Interests common to all are gas, electricity, water supplies, bus and rail transport, road transport and fuel supplies to get to and from work; also in particular the NHS and allied services, local services and amenities, green and open spaces.

These are a minimum of industries and services that should be run in the public interest, not for private profit; there are no doubt many other common interests that could be listed.

I believe a very large majority of people would support such a programme – a programme that worked for them, not the interests of the few.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

LIGHTS OUT tonight

Today is the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and to mark this we are inviting everyone (from large-scale organisations like Blackpool Illuminations, Tower Bridge and Piccadilly Circus to thousands of people at home) to turn out their lights, leaving on a single light or candle for a shared moment of reflection.

You can also get involved by tweeting a LIGHTS OUT selfie or an image of your moment using the hashtag #LIGHTSOUT. And you can download the free LIGHTS OUT Jeremy Deller app and watch Deller’s short film, available for just one hour from 10pm tonight. At 11pm, the film will disappear.

Jeremy Deller is one of a number of artworks commissioned across the UK as part of LIGHTS OUT.

It’s also your last chance to write your LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER

Almost 20,000 letters have been sent to the Unknown Soldier since the project began in June.

Letters have arrived from all over the United Kingdom and beyond, and many well-known writers and personalities have contributed. Stephen Fry, Malorie Blackman, Andrew Motion, Dawn French, Joanna Lumley and more.

Submissions will close at 11pm tonight. Don’t miss your chance to add your voice to this new war memorial.

For further information visit www.1418now.org.uk

Unknown Soldier: just one week left

Who said the art of letter writing was dead? LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER has turned out to be a huge success, and more than 16,000 people have contributed so far to this new kind of war memorial. Letters have poured in from all over the UK and beyond, each one expressing a different opinion, some deeply personal, others political, some loving and tender, others full of anger.

We’ve had letters from school children and politicians, midwives and teachers, published writers and servicemen and women. This week’s letters include one from the former Home Secretary and postman Alan Johnson, one about the experience of Sikh soldiers in the trenches and hundreds of letters from students around the country, including an absolute gem from 11 year old Craig Hayden Rankin from Rosebank Primary School in Nairn, Scotland.

A week today, the project will come to an end. Will you help us make it an even bigger success? Please, share this link and ask your friends and colleagues to write their own letter too. Our twitter name is @letter1418 and on facebook you can find us at Facebook.com/letter1418. Who knows, maybe we can reach 20,000 letters with your help!

1418now.org.uk/letter

Dearest Scotland …

Writing initiative ‘re-imagines the future of Scotland’

Take a pen and a piece of paper and write a letter to the future of Scotland? In this age of high-tech, super-fast digital communications it may seem like a very old-fashioned way to communicate, but a new writing project called Dearest Scotland has sparked a revival in letter writing.

The apolitical initiative has caught imaginations in the year of the Referendum by inviting letters and illustrations from people of all ages across the world with a connection to, or an interest in, Scotland.

Dearest Scotland is the brainchild of Glasgow-based social design agency SNOOK, who some readers may recall worked with Total Craigroyston and North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum on the ‘What’s the Matter?’ project in 2012.

Focused on crowd-sourcing from a widest possible demographic with the aim of giving a platform to citizens’ voices, Dearest Scotland’s co-founder, Sarah Drummond, recently spoke of the aspiration to receive handwritten letters that capture insights to what a future Scotland may look like.

Sarah said: “Our team at Snook work in grassroots communities and we hear great ideas everyday from ordinary people. Sadly there is no platform for these voices to be heard in the mainstream media, by governments or local authorities. Dearest Scotland aims to address that.”

The idea originated before the independence referendum was announced, and since it’s March launch Dearest Scotland has received a cross-section of letters keen to articulate visions that reach beyond the political debate of the 18 September vote.

And while the project proves that the art of letter writing isn’t dead, the choice to write and illustrate letters digitally via the Dearest Scotland website is also available!

Sarah also spoke of plans to publish received letters in a collated book format. She said: “Everyone who writes to Dearest Scotland has the chance to see their letter published. This allows for the opportunity to read what people of all ages from every part of the country have to say about their hopes and fears for a future Scotland both in connection to and outside of politics and the referendum.”

While new letters are catalogued daily, Sarah’s aim is to publish the visions in an open source digital catalogue – in addition to the book format – after the 13 September deadline for submissions, and all proceeds will be donated to new and existing Scottish literary projects.

The Dearest Scotland team is currently touring venues and events across the country, spreading the word in towns and rural areas.

The initiative has also caught the attention of politicians. Glasgow Anniesland MSP Bill Kidd lodged a parliamentary motion in support of the project in June, and a Holyrood debate has been scheduled for 13 August – the motion has received cross-party support from a further 25 members of the Scottish parliament. There are also plans to exhibit a display of letters by the Scottish Rural Parliament in November and within Holyrood in early 2015.

Sarah’s business partner and project co-founder, Lauren Currie, added: “We all have a box of letters stashed away somewhere that fill our hearts with joy every time we dig them out and re-read them. Dearest Scotland is our nation’s box of letters. These letters are so much more than communication, they are re-imagining the future of Scotland.”

To find out more information about Dearest Scotland’s project, summer tour, or to submit a future vision of Scotland, visit…

www.dearestscotland.com

twitter @dearestscotand

facebook /dearestscotland

Letter: the lies behind the cuts

Dear Editor

Councils and all public organisations have had drastic funding cuts, leading to a reduction in service provision. Funding cuts have been imposed on other organisations that provide necessary additional services to the public in many forms; these organisations rely heavily on volunteers, backed up by a few paid staff working to their physical limits.

If the policy of funding cuts continues, community structures are in danger of breaking down; vital services will not be available, leading to more privatisation taking place – for which, of course, you have to pay.

All money is raised through taxation, VAT, etc., which in turn should be used to fund services: political policy closing services is in fact making people pay twice for services. We are told ‘the country cannot afford them’, but as you know not millions but BILLIONS of pounds are being made in profits: disgraceful, disgusting amounts being paid to individuals who could hardly have earned such amounts – let alone spend it! And this at a time the public is being told a charge may be made in future for a doctor’s appointment and some treatments.

We are told repeatedly the country cannot afford it; the German fascist propaganda minister Dr Goebbels said: ‘If you tell a lie, tell a big one, over and over again, then people will start to believe it’.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

Write to the Unknown Soldier

Letter To An Unknown Soldier is a new kind of war memorial: one made only of words, and by thousands of people. And there’s still time to put pen to paper …

The project, created by Kate Pullinger and Neil Bartlett, is inspired by Charles Jagger’s famous statue in Paddington Station of a soldier reading a letter. Everyone in the UK is invited to pause, take a moment or two, and write that letter. All of the letters will be published online for everyone to read alongside contributions from 50 leading writers and held in the British Library’s web archive.

The project, run by 14-18 Now, asks as many people as possible to send a personal message to one of the men who served and was killed during World War One.

Schools and community groups, as well as individuals, have already written letters and their thoughts are part of an online exhibition. Letters are also featured from established writers including A.L Kennedy, Sheila Hancock, Andy McNab and Caryl Churchill.

It’s not too late to write your letter – the project runs until 4th August at 11pm: the centenary of the moment when Prime Minister Asquith announced to the House of Commons that Britain had joined the First World War.

For further information visit 1418now.org.uk

Produced in association with Free Word and in conjunction with the BBC

I’ve written to him:

Dear Friend

I hope I’m not being too presumptuous calling you friend – after all, we’ve never met but I feel that I’ve known you for most of my life. Let me explain.

Our paths first crossed when I was at secondary school; it must have been 1969 or 1970, which now seems such a long time ago!

It was Mr Macefield, a brilliant History teacher, who first introduced me to you and your pals. The Somme, Passchendaele, the misery, the suffering, the mud, the rats, the lice – I’ve remembered those lessons to this day.

I’ve never experienced war first hand; never felt the fear, breathed in the stench of gas and decay or cringed as shells came crashing down. I’ve never felt the grief of losing close pals. I feel dirty if I can’t shower every morning: God only knows how softies like me would have coped with the filth, the lice and the rats – but you did!

And I often wonder how I would have responded when the officer’s whistle sounded: would I have had the guts to clamber over the top and advance into an inferno of shells and withering machine gun fire? Would I have found it in me to summon up the courage to walk into Hell – you did.

I’m too old to fight now, so I’ll never know. I’ve reached middle age, something so many of you Tommies never did.

I wonder why you enlisted? Duty? Patriotic fervour? Maybe it was a sense of fair play, facing up to a bully? Or more likely you took the King’s shilling because you fancied an adventure and war offered a chance to see places you’d only ever heard about? You probably signed up because all your pals did, and you didn’t want to be left at home while they enjoyed danger and excitement abroad? Whatever your reason, I am grateful – and my generation and those that follow owe you so much.

It’s just a real pity we didn’t learn the lessons of your sacrifice: the Great War really should have been the war to end all wars, but mankind – and our so-called ‘leaders’ in particular – can be incredibly stupid. Just as they were in your day!

Society has moved forward in so many ways; you wouldn’t believe – indeed, couldn’t even begin to imagine – the advances we’ve made, but it seems we can’t stop finding reasons to fight each other. Territory, religion, ideology – you name it, we’ll go to war over it and we go on and on inventing new and ‘better’ ways to kill more and more people! Can you believe that?

But that’s not your fault. When the call came, you answered it. You did your bit; yes, for King and country but also for us. Thank you for all that you did and I’m sorry we’ve made such a mess of things. When I think of you – and the many thousands who also gave everything – I’m ashamed. We have let you down.

Letters: Word Play

Dear Editor

Most people now believe – with justification – that privatisation is a backward step, where provision of services in most cases comes second to making profits, yet the government and some local authorities are still selling off services.

They are aware that the word ‘privatisation’ is a ‘no-no’ so the term now used is ‘out-sourcing’: the outcome and results are exactly the same.

Another word being used to confuse people, in relation to protecting land from developers, is ‘safeguarding’; it should mean exactly that but to the confusers it means reserving the land for future development.

Confused? Taken in? That’s the whole point!

Very many examples of word play can be found; they can and do have serious consequences.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

D-Day: liberated people deserve tribute too

Dear Editor

TRIBUTES

Every year, D-Day 1944 is celebrated, particularly in Normandy where the people express gratitude for their liberation by organising many ceremonies.

Tremendous efforts are made and much kindness and respect is shown to those veterans attending. It is very moving to be on the receiving end of such friendship, particularly when so much devastation was inflicted on Normandy during those summer months of 1944.

There are very many monuments, commemorative sites, museums, etc. maintained to express this continuing gratitude, but I have long thought that the Allied governments should erect a suitable tribute dedicated to the people of Normandy for their endurance, courage and sacrifice. It is long overdue but should be done.

I believe this tribute would attract the support of many sections and ages of the UK population, particularly as 2015 will be the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens

Letter: More funding needed to protect our parents

Tony Delahoy on the final part of a deeply troubling BBC documentary …

Dear Editor

The third and final part of the BBC television programme ‘Protecting our Parents’ (Thursday 2 May) further illustrated the total inadequacy of the available resources – both staffing and funding – in addressing the human needs of frail individuals who are trying to understand the position they are in, at the same time being asked to decide their future accommodation needs.

Relatives, if available to help, are usually elderly themselves, with limited physical ability and torn by guilt.

One lady, who had dementia and at times could be aggressive, was a changed person after having one-to-one care: it was discovered in these one-to-one sessions that music was very comforting to her.

The extension of one-to-one care will need many more staff, more funding and more training. All authorities, national and local, say money is scarce so it is worth reminding them that all wealth is produced in the first place by people, and that money extracted from that wealth in various taxes still belongs to the people, who in turn elect others to manage to fund what the people need.

The Protecting our Parents series has shown the problems that exist now; the offloading of the elderly from hospital (to prevent ‘bed blocking’) to a sparse choice of expensive care homes, or a home care package which is inadequate, not only for essential needs but for mental inclusion in life.

A rapid increase in building NHS ‘halfway hospitals’ with fully trained staff is urgently needed to cater for the elderly who are in need of other care or accommodation.

Much more funding must be allocated to recruit, fully train and deploy staff to enable all round caring be given in Protecting our Parents.

A. Delahoy

Silverknowes Gardens