FREE ALARMS

I AM writing in regarding your article about the people of Billy Row, near Crook, being given 300 free personal alarms from Northern Gas Network as a thank you for the way for the way in which they dealt with a major gas leak in February (Echo, July 17).

As the story said, many people reported bogus callers operating in the area during the crisis so the company paid for the alarms to help make the people of Billy Row feel safer.

But what about the people of Crook? We had no gas for five days. If it is good enough to hand out these alarms to the people of Billy Row, it should also be good enough for the people of Crook to be given them. Everyone was in the same predicament and there should be no favouritism. - Mrs B Nicholson, Crook.

CROOK CARNIVAL

I WOULD like to apologise for a previous piece of correspondence (HAS, Page 10, July 13) when I stated that next year's Crook Carnival would be the 90th - it will be the 80th event. May I also ask anyone who owns an Army green Land Rover - Seventies-style - to contact the Crook Community Partnership office if they would be willing to let us use it on the Saturday before the July carnival, which is the beginning of Festival Week.

I can't give away the full reason yet, but it should be part of an "out of this world" experience. - Andrew Hall, chairman, Crook Community Partnership.