Sir – Regarding the article concerning research that showed pregnant women experienced substantial stress when, due to Covid restrictions, their birth partners could not play their full part in events.
It makes me even more full of admiration for my wife who, at the age of 20, was admitted to a nursing home for the birth of our first child in the “dark days” of 1965.
On reaching the establishment by taxi in the early hours of Sunday morning, we were met at the door by a nurse who, after allowing my wife and I to say our goodbyes, closed the door.
My part in the miracle of birth and life occurred nine months previously.
Our first son was born in the afternoon so I was able to see mother and baby in the allotted 7-8pm visiting hour.
My wife’ s comment was: “Thank goodness you didn’t see me giving birth.”
Attitudes change but, in defence of what was considered the best birthing rules at that time, my absence from their birth has not made my bond with my three sons, now middle-aged men, any less special, nor did it dampen the affection my wife and I felt for each other.
Mind you, I’m no expert, only a father.
Ivan W Reid, Kirkburn, Laurencekirk, Aberdeenshire.
You can read the article mentioned above here.
Candidates need life experience
Sir, – Earlier this month we read of a 21-year-old male who caused over £300,000 worth of damage and a number of animals to be slaughtered, by setting fire to a farmer’s barn, and who was regarded as not having reached full maturity.
Then we read that the SNP government want to lower the age at which a person can stand for election to the Scottish Parliament, or a council, to 16 years of age.
What is going on? Twenty-one-year-olds are not deemed to be fully mature, and yet they want 16-year-olds to be able to represent us on governing bodies. How does that make sense?
The ideal people to represent us should be people who have some life experence. Have worked for their living. Lived in a property and paid their rent, council tax and utility bills and made ends meet. People who have lived in the real world. Running a council, or government, is like running a business. You have to balance the books at the end of the day. It is all very well giving handouts, left, right and centre but you can only give out what you already have.
Perhaps that is what is wrong with the Scottish Government, they have no business acumen. Just look at their record with the ferry fiasco, Prestwick Airport, BiFab, etc, now they are going to try their hand at running our railway. They have wasted millions upon millions of pounds of tax-payers’ money.
So let’s forget about being able to elect 16-year-olds in future. Let us look for mature people with experience of life, school teachers, retired police officers, businessmen, NHS workers, and housewives, for example, to represent us in the elections.
William Gumbrell, Derbyhall Avenue, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire.
Ill-conceived calls for Johnson to quit
Sir, – I am not a Boris fan. During the Conservative leadership race four years ago, I wrote to my Conservative MP asking him to back “ABB”, anyone but Boris.
However, we are in the middle of the biggest crisis for global security of anyone’s lifetime. A city the size of Aberdeen has been razed to the ground and thousands of civilians killed and millions forced to flee their homes. The Red Cross say it is 10 million. If Ukraine loses, the whole free world is in peril.
Yet one of the most steadfast opponents of the criminal responsible for these actions is hounded over a nine-minute boozeless, cakeless “birthday party” held a few weeks after he nearly died of Covid. Those asking him to resign like Sir Keir Stammer and Ed Davey cannot or will not see the bigger picture, not to mention Nicola Sturgeon. How Putin must be chuckling.
Keith Shortreed, Cottown of Gight, Methlick, Aberdeenshire.