08/07/05

Matters could easily have been much worse, given that Oldfield had suffered a serious head wound in the First World War and, in fact, had a steel plate inserted into his skull.

Many people considered that his baggy green Australian cap may have prevented much more serious injury from the blow struck by Larwood.

In 1950, Harold Larwood emigrated to Australia where he became great friends with Oldfield, so much so that, when Oldfield died in 1976, Larwood acted as a pallbearer at the funeral.

It is heartening to see that such an enduring friendship could evolve from such a bitterly fought contest as the Bodyline Series of 1932-33.

The question that has to be asked is: will such friendships be forged among the current crop of players? Early signs from the one-day games played to date are far from positive. - Martin W Birtle, Billingham.

ROYALS

BRAVO to Mike Garbutt for his comments on our Royals (HAS, June 27) and bravo, too, to The Northern Echo for printing his letter.

These impostors from across the water have lorded it over our nation for far too long.

If Hitler had landed on these shores you would not have seen the Royals for dust - not for them fighting to the death which would have been the fate for the rest of us.

What really annoys me is how the people fawn on them and the aristocratic circle that surrounds them.

We won't see the back of them for some time yet, but some day the British people will recover some of their lost backbone and wish them goodbye and they can take their billions with them.

Maybe we can sell all their palaces and stately homes, not to mention the mansions.

Come on now all you Royalists, just what use is Royalty in this day and age when half the world is starving? - Hugh Pender, Darlington.

RIGHTS OF WAY

YOUR feature on the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (Business Echo, July 5) is surely rather misleading.

Most of the examples you give are concerned with rights of way problems. Open access is only concerned with unimproved land and, for our area, will be mainly heather moorland.

Animals straying onto the road out of fields or walkers falling into fishponds have nothing to do with the CRoW Act, but could only be involved with existing rights of way.

Ian Wallace talks of people "falling off a gate" or "hurting themselves on a fence". If all gates were easy to open and close this would not happen. Instead, one encounters decrepit gates with string hinges, stiles with barbed wire on the top rung or electric fences across a footpath and, of course, the multitude of "Bull in Field" signs to deter the unwary walker.

For every walker who leaves a gate open there is a farmer happy to leave his paths and bridleways as unattractive and as difficult to use as possible. - Eric Gendle, Middlesbrough.

THOUGHTS OF HOME

THANK you for the interesting article (Echo, June 30) relating to the Battle of Warlencourt.

My uncle, William Alderson, was killed there, having been in the Army for five months.

His family lived at Newbegin Hall, near Grosmont, and had tried very hard to keep him at home to help on the farm as he was the eldest son.

I have visited the graveyard at Warlencourt, which is at the foot of the mound called Butte, and could not believe the sacrifice for this small hill.

I am privileged to have photocopies of the letters he wrote home - they make very painful reading. Being a farm boy, they are interlaced with thoughts of what he would be doing should he have been at home.

One letter reads: "I was pleased to hear that you were getting on so nicely with haytime. It has been grand hay weather this week". And, in a later letter from France: "I expect you will soon be having the thresher. I wish I was there to help them, but we've got a big enough job here, I think".

In the short time he was a soldier, he was attached to three different battalions of the Yorkshire Regiment.

On October 21, he wrote home from France saying he was now in the 13th Platoon of the Durham Light Infantry; by November 5 he was dead. His last communications with home were three pre-printed postcards to grandparents at Fryup and Girsby, and his parents at Newbegin. They are dated November 3 and were postmarked November 5.

Perhaps the most poignant letters are those returned to the family after his death. One is dated December 3 from his grandparents which begins: "Dear Willie, we are still looking anxiously for a line from you. Wonder if letters are coming through to you as we don't receive any from you."

It is impossible to imagine their anguish at the long wait only to find out that he had been dead long before they wrote the letters. - Bette Atkinson, Guisborough.

HOUSING STOCK

In his letter (HAS, June 27) Peter Dolan from Newton Aycliffe stated that Sedgefield Borough Council had never given its tenants sufficient information so they could make a definitive choice on the transfer of the housing stock to Sedgefield Housing.

The council has, for the past 12 months, held numerous meetings with tenants in many places used for public gatherings.

It has also provided a mobile exhibition, plus a varied selection of printed information and, in every instance, has insisted it would be the tenants' vote that would decide the issue. The issue is a simple one involving time and money.

During the period when a part of the housing stock was built, most of the tenants had coal fires, no central heating and, for entertainment, they went to the local cinema. In the same period, young women learned to scrub steps and handle poss tubs. Today, teenagers dress like Kate Moss and shop at the MetroCentre.

As for the time factor, one cannot expect housing department officials who were educated in the 1970/80s to administer housing stock built in the 1950s from an idea conceived in the 1930s.

The time span is too great and therefore the housing has to be modernised to suit the world of 2005 and beyond.

Modernisation requires money, so tenants should make the most of the best financial deal that is on offer.

Contrary to Peter Dolan's thinking, it is the tenants who will make the final decision on the transfer so they must choose whether to move into the future or look with nostalgia at the past.

In the modern world, if you stand still you are left behind. - Thomas Conlon, Spennymoor.