Today’s letters to The Courier’s editor include discussions about speed cameras, our national anthem, a long-running TV show, and energy plans for Dundee.
Scotland requires speed-awareness coursesSir,-Your item about cash from speed cameras (August 27) struck a chord.
Last week I went to Carlisle to attend a speed awareness course.
This was offered by the Welsh and English police as an alternative to losing points on one’s licence and a fine.
The cost to me was £70 and petrol in getting there, though, in this case, I could have opted to take the much more expensive journey by train.
I went with a certain amount of scepticism as to the value of such a course.
I returned completely converted. It is the answer to those of us who think that speed cameras are there for the sole purpose of gaining money for the local authorities.
The course, which lasted four hours with two small breaks, was delivered by a non-profit making company with a professionalism that was astounding.
To hold the attention of 24 adults who covered the complete age and class range for that length of time was a considerable achievement.
I sat next to a young teacher from the north- east of England who propounded to me at the start that the sort of didactic teaching we were going to meet was almost extinct in most secondary schools.
I responded as a retired teacher to say that this form of teaching is making a welcome comeback, and, after the four hours, she entirely agreed with me that it was a perfectly valid method of teaching if well delivered.
Three quarters of us were from Scotland, where the course is not available, two of these coming, like me, from Dundee.
All of us learned a great deal in those four hours, much of it new to most of us, including the HGV driver who was on the course.
Please, if any of you reading this has any political clout, can we introduce this alternative to Scotland?
All our questions were answered including the obvious one that none of us was doing much more than the speed limit because if we were we would not be up on a charge of breaking a speed limit but one for dangerous driving.
Robert Lightband.40 Clepington Court,Dundee.
Settled will of our nationSir,-Some time ago you featured a quest for, and correspondence about, the need for a Scottish national anthem.
I hope I will be excused for resurrecting the topic, but, having watched the worldwide televising of the Edinburgh Tattoo, I was struck by the thought of the countless millions watching worldwide and listening to our de facto national anthem.
Surely the best-known song in the world, which forever rings of Scotland is our national anthem and will continue to be, no matter what else is forwarded as a candidate.
There’s really no valid argument our national anthem is already unshakably established Auld Lang Syne.
James Thomson.14 Vardon Drive,Glenrothes.
Richness of experienceSir,-The Sombre Seventies was a simply dreadful decade and it was in one of its bleakest years, 1973, that Last of the Summer Wine was first aired.
I assumed it would be a short-running series of interest to future historians as symptomatic of a time when starting a family, as I was then doing, felt like an act of almost surreal faith.
To generations brought up on Just William and the Famous Five, we understood these were the golden Edwardian children grown old and become the cranky pensioners of post-war Britain.
We all knew a Nora Batty and her dreadful tea circle, a co-op salesman like Clegg, a scruffy anarchist like Compo and a Foggy Dewhurst lost in the twilight of the Empire.
The series has come to an end but it ran on until I myself had grown old and agreed with its writer Roy Clark that the elderly are much weirder and more interesting than younger people suspect.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Misleading fuel claimSir,-I read with dismay the double standards and self contradictions to which Forth Ports and their joint venture company Forth Energy will stoop to gain credibility for their proposed green and environmentally friendly ventures.
The latest being their belief, and I quote, “the removal of freight from Dundee’s roads by moving more cargo by sea thus reducing emissions and greenhouse gasses”.
What a good idea but I was led to believe that a high percentage of the fuel to power Forth Energy’s proposed power producing incinerator at Dundee Harbour was, or had to be, sourced from Scotland.
Are these thousands of tonnes of Scottish biofuel to be beamed into our port by tele-transporter or is this locally sourced fuel not to be supplied by lorry loads through Dundee’s roads?
Ian Milne.Netherton of Craigie,Craigiebarn Road,Dundee.
No reduction in carbon outputSir,-In your article on the proposed biomass plant (August 30), it is stated that Forth Energy claim that the plant will reduce Dundee’s carbon footprint.
The proposed biomass plant will produce locally as much, if not more, carbon dioxide than a conventional coal-fired power station.
Any reduction in carbon emissions will take place where the wood fuel is sourced, although, even then, I cannot accept that trees will grow at the same rate as they are burned, which is the base assumption.
(Dr) G. M. Lindsay.Whinfield Gardens,Kinross.
Get involved: to have your say on these or any other topics, email your letter to letters@thecourier.co.uk or send to Letters Editor, The Courier, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL.