Today’s letters remember the blitz in Scotland, ask how society could ever be categorised, defend civic receptions, question the renewable energy industry, and consider matters of creation.
Britons stood together in face of Nazi blitz Sir,-Your story about the Clydebank blitz (September 13) seemed to devote most of its space to a protest about the lack of acknowledgment of the loss of life, the suffering and the great damage done by the German air raids.
During a war, it is not wise to publish detailed reports of the results of enemy action. The enemy then knows for sure it has hit its target and is encouraged to inflict more damage.
Bad news was suppressed and good news exaggerated to keep up morale.
To say that there was much resentment in Scotland at the playing down of the Clydebank casualties contradicts my recollection. Dismay at the disaster, certainly, but not resentment against the government in my neck of the woods, Dundee. We reserved our resentment for the enemy, the Nazis.
Dad was an air-raid warden (he’d done his bit in the first world war) and he told us of visits from representatives of the emergency services in Clydebank who came to give Dundee wardens, firemen and policemen advice on how to deal with a possible future attack on the Dundee area.
I cannot remember any comparison being made between Scottish and English suffering, nor was there any resentment about the victims of the London blitz being remembered but not the Scots.
We all knew that Glasgow and Clydebank, along with other British cities, such as Liverpool, Birmingham and Coventry, were receiving a hammering as well as London.
Why this growing us and them attitude among Scots? It certainly does not apply to either of the world wars.
We stood together as British and gave each other mutual support.
George K. McMillan.5 Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.
Invidious evaluation
Sir,-I read Malcolm Parkin’s recent correspondence on alcohol pricing with a measure of disbelief.
I wonder if your correspondent would be willing and/or able to distinguish between those who are the most “harmonious and productive members of our society” and those who fall outside this category and offer some reassurance to your readership that, despite the suggestion in his correspondence, he does not believe that the lives of one artificially defined group in our society are worth any more or less than others.
George Burton.35 Kilberry Street,Dundee.
Receptions’ important role
Sir,-Your headline (September 16) about civic hospitality implies unreasonable expense by Perth and Kinross Council.
In fact, each civic reception is scrutinised to ensure that it fulfils an important role. This process will be even more rigorous in the future. Hospitality is used to give recognition to local success (for example St Johnstone’s promotion) or to honour individual achievement. It promotes our tourist economy by recognising important sporting events such as international curling championships and by attracting major conferences, for example, the forthcoming Mountain conference.
These bring people to Perth and Kinross from all over the world. In due course many return for private holidays.
Receptions can celebrate our important connections with, for example, The Black Watch, and help local charities such as PKAVS. Finally, they are used to promote Perth either in Scotland, or abroad.
(Dr) John Hulbert.Provost of Perth and Kinross.
Attraction of subsidies
Sir,-With reference to your coverage (September 14) of the proposed £3 billion investment in Scotland’s renewable energy projects by Iberdrola, readers should remember that energy companies are not charitable organisations, nor altruistically inclined, and would expect to make a profit from their investment. When you ponder just where this profit is coming from, it is from the ever-increasing bills borne by electricity consumers as a consequence of subsidies paid to renewable energy companies.
Companies such as Iberdrola are not farming wind but are farming subsidies.
G. M. Lindsay.Whinfield Gardens,Kinross.
A thoroughly elusive deity
Sir,-The Rev J. Harrison Hudson uses one of the oldest arguments (ex nihilo nihil) to justify that the blue touch paper of the Big Bang had to be lit by some supernatural being. To turn his own words back on him, his idea of supernatural creation begs the very same question — from whence comes the supernatural creator? The belief that this creator has always existed is nonsensical.
The idea that the universe emerged from the nothingness of the Big Bang becomes much more credible, as Hawking and other scientists start to unravel its origins, than the concept of this creator emerging from the nothingness of nothing, which religion both refuses to and is unable to explain rationally.
He argues that because humankind possesses self-consciousness, we postulate that behind our existence is some superior being who is also self-conscious.
This can be more logically interpreted to show that all gods are, in fact, the creation of humankind created to explain what until recently has been inexplicable — how we came to be.
Why has this god been content to reveal his presence, knowledge and dubious wisdom only to Bronze Age tribes, yet continues to be so unwilling to reveal himself to a scientifically and technically sophisticated modern audience?
M. Duncan.100 Craigie Road,Perth.
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