He has worked for 30 years for a solution to the Irish problem. Why would he even consider, let alone publicly agonise over, a decision so obvious to your newspaper and to the rest of us?
Try as I will, I cannot help returning to the only reason which stands up to scrutiny. It must be that this able, proud, accomplished, respected leader of Ulster’s nationalists can see no positive outcome to the talks. Why, unless he sees defeat staring him in the face, and an inevitable return to the cycle of violence, would a man of this calibre walk away from the victory (a just settlement) he has so long desired?
I trust your leading article and the appeals of others will persuade John to carry on the struggle and, later, take on the presidency of a new Ireland when his election can be celebrated by all the people on the whole island. As a Protestant who knows him, but not well, I would add my voice to yours: “John, do not give up. Do not desert the storm-tossed ship of negotiation for a seat in a grand empty room in Dublin.
Risk honourable defeat, for there will be no honour in watching from Phoenix Park a tragedy you might by your stature and skill have prevented. And forgive me if my analysis is wrong.”GIL WARNOCKBallymoney, Co Antrim. Sir: The motoring organisations predictably attack suggestions that anyone should be deprived of the God-given right to drive a car wherever he or she chooses, including on the M25 in peak hours (“Drivers face car ban on busy M-ways”, 15 August). They rely once again on the argument that there is a body of drivers out there who will make their journey by car anyway – “If you restrict access to motorways, people will just drive on to local roads, which are not designed to carry these loads.” The same argument is used to justify building more roads, to accommodate the “inevitable” increase in traffic
This one really should be killed off once and for all. Each of us decides whether and how to make a particular journey by balancing up his need to make it against the time, cost and inconvenience involved in the various means of making it. If I have to commute into central London from Hertfordshire, and the journey takes 50 minutes by car and 80 minutes by train, I shall travel by car – unless the cost rises enough to outweigh the convenience.
If the train is quicker, I shall use that.
The task of the new crew at the Department of Transport is to shift the balance. Every measure that makes it a little quicker or more convenient or cheaper to use the train than the car will cause a few more people to switch over.STEPHEN CROMIELondon NW1. Sir: It may be of some comfort to B F James (letter, 11 August) to know that the cost in suffering and death of building the wartime Thai-Burma railway is in fact well commemorated along the River Kwai. The much visited and beautifully maintained Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries at Kanchanaburi and Chung Kai, the recently developed Memorial at Hell Fire Pass, and the vividly informative memorial museum maintained by the Buddhist monks at Kanchanaburi are moving reminders of the terrible suffering of allied PoWs and Asian labourers on the Death Railway. B F James is concerned that a proposal to reopen the line threatens a vulgar, tourist-oriented exploitation of the site of such suffering.
What has been mooted is reconstruction of the abandoned railway right through to Burma – a major project motivated by considerations far beyond the creation of a mere tourist attraction.
And use of the Thai-Burma railway would in fact be no novelty; while, after the war, much of the line was abandoned, a substantial portion was rebuilt and incorporated into the Thai railway system. It is at present possible, as it has been for 50 years, to travel by regular train from Nong Pladuk for 80 miles via Kanchanaburi and the famous bridge, to the end of the line at Nam Tok. Especially at weekends, this is a popular excursion for Thais and others; tourists they may be, but their enjoyment, as facilitated by the railway, of the peace and natural beauty of the Kwai Noi valley need not be seen as a desecration.R H GRIEVEGlasgow. Sir: It is absurd to suggest as Mrs Fuller does (letter, 14 August) that English teachers do not know how to teach sentence construction They spend much of their working life doing just that. What the Department for Education and Employment presumably meant in the statement to the press (report, 12 August) was that teachers do not coach their pupils in the sort of grammatical hoop-jumping required by the pilot tests. It is not difficult to teach grammatical rules in isolation.
On the contrary, grammar exercises make an undemanding lesson for the teacher but, as research has shown, not always a useful one for the pupil. Knowledge gained in this way does not transfer into their own writing and reading.
Assessment should be based on language in use, not on a random selection of grammatical exercises, as proposed in the pilot tests.ANNE BARNESGeneral SecretaryNational Association for the Teaching of EnglishSheffield. Sir: The reason, I would suggest, for the variation in opinions on the people of France (letters, 14, 16 August) is dependent on whether you have visited Paris or not Parisians are rude, ignorant and in a hurry Provincial people are pleasant, attentive and relaxed
M D WELLS
Pinner, Middlesex. Sir: Now that 20 years have lapsed since the King of Rhythm and Blues died, it is time to tell the truth about Elvis. Elvis was the first white Rhythm and Blues singer, everyone would agree on that; but he didn’t play the music. The music was played by the first white Rhythm and Blues band and that band gave Elvis his original sound.
Elvis found getting the blues sound of the vocals hard and some of his early blues recordings took him over 100 takes to perfect. However those original recordings made by Elvis and the white studio musicians stand as the best white Rhythm and Blues ever recorded.The band went on to record under the name of the Bill Black Combo, and their vocalist, Elvis, went on to be the King of Holliwooden music.