Sir, I read with great interest your excellent report on the poignant tribute (Courier, April 4), regarding the kilted Black Watch Soldier of the Great War statue that is to be erected next year at The Black Watch Corner in Belgium.
The other statues created by Alan Herriot relate only to the Second World War (soldier and girl ) at the North Inch in Perth and the piper statue at Bruar mentioned in your feature story but there are no statues to The Black Watch alone for the Great War period.
It would an ideal time to have a copy of the statue erected at Perth the home of The Black Watch to remember our famous regiment’s Great War sacrifices as the main recruiting area of the regiment was Angus, Perthshire and Fife.
Many families in the recruiting areas of Scotland for The Black Watch lost family members during that war to end all wars.
My namesake uncle, Lieutenant PW Anderson served in the Somme during 1915 with 10th Black Watch before being sent to Salonika.
He died of wounds later whilst attached to the RAF in the latter months of the war but he still continued to wear his Black Watch uniform with the airforce.
Patrick W Anderson. 2 McFarlane Croft, Letham, Angus.
Why no local members?
Sir, My wife and I took two of our grandchildren to see the concert given by the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland at the Caird Hall on Friday evening. The concert was fantastic but it was disappointing to see from the programme that not a single member of the orchestra came from Dundee (or Perth).
Is this telling us something about the quality of music teaching in our local schools?
Professor Sir Philip Cohen. University of Dundee.
No urgency to get work done
Sir, I can sympathise with shopkeepers at St Leonard’s Bridge in Perth (Courier, April 4). How often have we seen mile after mile of cones on motorways and nothing happening.
To revert to Perth, there are currently two pavement improvement projects on the go, one in George Street and the other at the North Inch in Atholl Street. For days on end no work seems to be done. At least they are working at St Leonard’s Bridge, but there is no sense of urgency at all at the other two.
If these were private contractors and had to make a profit to live, I fear they would not last very long.
W G Watson. 20 Spoutwells Drive, Scone.
Lamb to save their bacon
Sir, With regard to Mr Cameron and Trident: it is a well-known defence tactic to ensure that the enemy knows the weak point so you know where they are likely to attack.
Trident is designed to be a moveable and almost undetectable target hidden at sea. Obviously the weak point where an attack can be expected is its supply depot at the Holy Loch.
The military and naval planners are not stupid: they know this. Therefore, there must be secret emergency supply depots already in existence in the event of the Holy Loch being taken out.
If an enemy attacks Trident’s supply depot, I should think that there will be few if any jobs at the Holy Loch or, if it is a nuclear attack, many jobs remaining in Central Scotland.
I suspect that Mr Cameron’s real concern is that if an independent Scotland won’t help fund Trident, then Westminster can’t afford it. So, if you will permit me to mix my metaphors, Scotland is the sacrificial lamb to save Westminster’s bacon.
Brian Rattray. 124/2 Gylemuir Road, Corstorphine, Edinburgh.
People should raise voices
Sir, Surely the citizens of Dundee and their representatives (the council) have the right to say whether or not the biomass plant should be situated here?
I lived near a factory in England situated near a small village which had a large stack to take the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but this didn’t work.
The village had to endure the constant smell of this gas especially when the wind changed.
In the end the environment department was involved and the factory was eventually closed.
If this is a democracy then the people should decide and not the Scottish government.
Why has the SNP Council in Dundee handed over this decision to the Scottish SNP Government?
I would encourage the people of Dundee to let their voice be heard.
Frances Duncan. 34 Gardner Street, Dundee.
Added danger of Gaelic signs
Sir, While I agree that it is a total waste of taxpayers’ money to pay for Gaelic signs, have those involved thought about another matter associated with this? Drivers who do not understand the language will spend more time with their eyes off the road, possibly resulting in an increase in road accidents. Any loss of life for this reason is unacceptable as is the extra cost of dealing with accidents.
Garry Barnett. The Garden House, Campsie Hill, Guildtown, Perth.
Held in great respect
Sir, In November 1990, Colin Anderson, Director of Kinnis Shipping; Archie Lamont, Director of Grainfax and I met with the Under Secretary of Agriculture in a monolithic government office building in the heart of Moscow. Our mission was to encourage grain trade between Dundee Port and Russia.
The meeting began in a friendly manner with positive dialogue between us when suddenly our hosts were called from the room. A couple of minutes or so later they returned looking crestfallen and in a voice that was high in emotion the undersecretary told us that Margaret
Thatcher had been ousted as Prime Minister of Great Britain. There were tears in his eyes when he told us his news and he went on to confide how much he and his fellow officials respected the ‘Iron Lady’.
That experience had a lasting impression on me and was yet but another example of how she brought about the changes that we look back upon today. Whatever one’s political views might be she had her own principles and stuck to them both at home and abroad and Britain gained credibility again accordingly.
Captain John J Watson. ex-Chief Executive, Dundee Port Authority. 39 Elie Avenue, Broughty Ferry.
“Society” quote claim inaccurate
Sir, Of all the criticism thrown at Margaret Thatcher north of the border, the most famous is that her “sermon on the mound” declared that there was no such thing as society.
That is simply not true and though the Kirk met her with incomprehension the meaning was quite clear: society is made up of individuals and families who have responsibilities; if they do not discharge those responsibilities, society cannot thrive.
She was our only premier to leave the world a blueprint for the modern state and many nations now appreciate her vision of small government, low taxes and free trade.
We may not want to admit it but her emphasis on hard work and personal responsibility as opposed to relying on enfeebling welfare was once part of the Scottish character.
Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.
Her “no” led to Scotland’s “yes”
Sir, So we say farewell to the Iron Lady. We never met, but I once I think on Any Questions said I felt I would have liked her. Not, I hasten to say because of her views and policies, both of which I believe to have been fundamentally flawed, but because she had a conviction and consistency that put her head and shoulders above many politicians.
In one important respect, we owe her a kind of perverse thanks. But for her, we might well not have had a Scottish Parliament today. I often called her “the mother of the Scottish Parliament” until some in the press started to call me its father.
Her use of the powers of her office to impose on Scotland, not just policies rejected by the great majority of Scots and their MPs, but essentially an alien ideology, had one crucial unintended consequence. It forced us to see clearly that the problem of Scotland’s governance was not just political but constitutional; not just who happened to govern, but how we were governed.
Speaking of Westminster’s claim to have the last word and to absolute sovereignty, the Church of Scotland Assembly of 1989 said: “that which was always unacceptable in principle, has now become intolerable in practice”. That was the conviction that led to the Claim of Right for Scotland and empowered the Convention to succeed in reaching consensus on a Scottish government.
Margaret Thatcher said “no” to Scotland, but the way she did so, was a major factor in enabling us to say “yes”.
Canon Kenyon Wright. 1 Churchill Close, Ettington, Stratford upon Avon.
Put Britain back on world stage
Sir, Lady Thatcher’s death put the BBC on the spot. It was an education to watch the BBC commentators wriggle and squirm as they tried to appear objective and fair, although it was obvious that most of them were opposed to her, to put it mildly.
I must say I was delighted throughout her long premiership to see utterly vanquished the political forces which had so long dominated Britain to its great detriment from 1945 on. Her restoration of Britain to a position of importance on the world stage was also a source of satisfaction.
Probably the greatest tribute to her was the vehemence of the hatred shown to her by the forces which had almost brought this country to its knees. Unfortunately, since her fall from power, these same forces have returned to continue unmolested with their work of demolition.
George K McMillan. 5 Mount Tabor Avenue, Perth.