Sir, – Re the Queen’s final journey from Balmoral. I stood to watch at Potarch, Deeside, alongside hundreds of people, old and young, with some in wheelchairs, on both sides of road.
The entourage just bombed down Deeside at 40 or 50mph. If you blinked you missed the coffin, and I’m sure a great many did. One elderly man said he didn’t have time to bow his head and one lady also said she missed the coffin going past.
What was the point of us all travelling to pay our respects to the Queen we loved when children taken there will have zero memory of seeing her on her final journey?
It would have been no problem for the cortege to slow down when passing sections of the route with large crowds. We are left feeling cheated and angry.
We have been treated with contempt.
This left a bad taste in the mouth in place of what should have been a feeling of warmth. Whose decision was it to make it a race – the organisers? Police Scotland? Shame on them.
The Queen, who loved Deeside and its people, would have been so sad about this.
And the BBC announces live on TV that the people of Scotland don’t “emote” or care the same as the English. Well, probably not now.
Will the funeral be at 50mph as well?
Hugh and Irene Spencer, Westwood Way, Westhill.
Prophetic words from 70 years ago
Sir, – I’d like to share with readers some words my late father, Rev Douglas Sutherland, wrote to his congregation in the West Parish Church, Inverness, following the death of King George VI in February 1952.
Having spoken about the death of Queen Victoria he wrote: “One day when, we hope, she too is an old, old woman, that same hour will strike for the fair young lady who is now our Queen.
“And the gradually loosening silver cord of her mind will perhaps also go back – back across the years to when Philip, Duke of Edinburgh broke the news in the royal lodge a few hours after that carefree night in the treetops at Kenya.
“We have a sure hope that by the grace of God and through the stability of that character which she has already so strongly built up, our Queen will meet that day, when it comes, with the same peace of mind and spirit as did Victoria.”
I feel sure those words written more than 70 years ago came to pass on Thursday.
Ian Sutherland, Airyhall Gardens, Aberdeen.
Collaboration key to UK’s success
Sir, – Boris Johnson’s exit at No 10 stinks of narcissism, he cares nothing for his successor nor the rest of the UK. His baton hand-on because “they changed the rules” (not his attacks on the norms of our constitution), plus more Ancient Rome-style suggestions of a return, all undermine rather than help his successor.
Yet Truss naively pays him homage, from Kiev but not quite to Scotland – why stop at Carlisle?
And she ignorantly uses the Russian Kiev, rather than Ukrainian Kyiv. Perhaps anywhere north of Carlisle or Kyiv fails to register in her thoughts?
Truss delivered nothing as trade secretary (rollover of existing EU deals, stress to UK farming by new Australasia deals, no UK-beneficial US deal) and as foreign secretary prolonged the Northern Ireland impasse. So what “super-inclusive policies” can we look forward to, given her exclusion of non-compliant sycophants?
We desperately need both cross-party and internal party co-operation of all views (Scotland and UK), not extreme factions vying within the Conservative party to control their leader.
This is more important than Truss or whoever is PM. Johnson’s protracted exit from No 10 makes divisions even worse.
Where are the collaborative politicians these days?
Mike Hannan, Earlswells Place, Cults, Aberdeen.
Traffic lights cause rush-hour queues
Sir, – The eastbound traffic lights at the Auchmill Road/Haudagain bypass junction, heading towards the roundabout, spend a long time on red which results in long traffic queues during the evening rush hour similar to before the bypass was built. As no traffic from any other source can enter this section of road, why are these traffic lights being set to red?
This new road cost many millions, but the benefits have not yet been fully realised simply due to traffic light settings.
I previously reported this on your website with no change or response, and have also contacted Aberdeen City Council, but as they are not due to take on responsibility for this section of road until April 2023, they directed me back to yourselves and this email address.
Sam Petchey, Queen Street, Aberdeen.
No denying effects of climate change
Sir, – Dr Charles Wardrop is apparently a retired medical physician. He quotes a well-known climate denier Professor Happer as an authoritative source in his letter.
This is typical of climate change misinformation. You find one scientist who disagrees, and ignore the literally thousands of scientists working in the field of climate science, and the reams of work published by the UN.
Why does The P&J keep giving oxygen to this nonsense? A letter from Dr Wardrop in Monday’s paper and one on Tuesday as well? Give us a break!
Science is about the body of evidence, not just one individual’s view. That’s how it works.
You can deny the truth, but nature has a horrible habit of ignoring that. So this year alone, 16 million trees had to be cleared up after the winter storms here. Crops are affected by drought in the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. An area the size of the UK underwater in Pakistan. Unprecedented temperature records and wildfires in many places. That’s just to mention a few of the effects now becoming clearer and clearer.
Lesley Ellis, Reekitlane, Tarland.
Stoking hysteria of global warming
Sir, – There has been much said in your letters pages regarding global warming and the alleged catastrophe that is supposed to be approaching.
There is no doubt that the climate is warming. Some of those living in Aberdeenshire will recall the snows of 50 years ago which do not occur now.
However, everything these days seems to be blamed on climate change, the latest being the “golf ball-sized hailstones” recently in Spain.
I recall being on holiday in France about 40 years ago when a similar phenomenon occurred, damaging property and cars.
Much has also been said about the floods in Pakistan with a similar climate change tag.
These floods due to the monsoon occur fairly regularly.
The world’s population has grown significantly but we are still able to feed this ever-growing number.
The famines which occurred in history were, in the main, due to cold periods in the global climate.
Even the IPCC admits in its latest report that the evidence supporting increased hurricanes, drought and flooding is scant.
Too many politicians and others have listened to frightened activists (and those with a political agenda) and are stoking the hysteria which history tells us is unjustified.
Mike Salter, Glassel, Banchory.
Time to recognise nuclear veterans
Sir, – One of the final acts of Boris Johnson as prime minister was to write an open letter to the armed forces personnel involved in the UK’s nuclear testing programme during the 1950s.
On June 6 this year, he met with a group of veterans, families, and supporters, where he heard accounts of some of the problems they had encountered since these tests. He then promised to look into ways in which their service could be recognised.
In the letter, he thanked the veterans for their part in the development of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent, and along with other methods of recognition, he stated that it was his firm belief that “you all deserve to be honoured with a medal”.
On October 3 it will be the 70th anniversary of the first UK nuclear test, Operation Hurricane, where a nuclear device was exploded in the hull of HMS Pymm off the north-west coast of Australia.
Colin Moir, Main Street, Hatton.
Storm is brewing over lack of wind
Sir, – It may have escaped the attention of Nicola Sturgeon and her Green chums in Holyrood as they pursue their IndyRef2 campaign with zeal, that a report is available which shows that the wind speed for 2021 was the second lowest for the past 50 years, and the average wind speed for the UK last year fell from 9.7 knots in 2020 to 8.6kn in 2021.
It must be assumed that this is the effect of global warming, and as such will be a progressively worsening situation for the production of electricity through wind energy as it blows less and less as the years progress.
So where does the energy come from when the wind doesn’t blow?
I’m old enough to remember when all the small towns and burghs in Scotland had coal, gas, and electric power available on site, and if my memory serves me correctly at Dounreay there was research done on a small reactor which was developed for nuclear submarines, under the name of HMS Vulcan.
As a result of this, or maybe not, Rolls-Royce have produced a Small Modular Reactor (SMR). Surely, rather than investing in monoliths which take a decade to build, these SMRs could be placed strategically around the country to serve the population when wind power is not available.
When wind power is available these SMRs if stationed near the coast could be involved in the production of hydrogen, and the desalination of seawater which could be pumped to storage facilities inland to serve the population and the farming industry in times of drought, which we have seen recently, and according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) will be a yearly problem.
These SMRs are to be approved by the Netherlands government, which was the first of many to anticipate the problems of relying on Russian fossil fuels, and among the first to sever the links with the current regime.
Perhaps it is time for this SNP government, instead of wasting taxpayers’ money on SNP frivolities, to think out of the box to see what is plainly and most certainly coming over the horizon.
Alexander Sutherland, Hilton Drive, Aberdeen.
No defence for this offensive outburst
Sir, – According to our first minister, the people of Scotland would be offended by the fact that Prime Minister Liz Truss once labelled her an “attention seeker”.
I presume one of those mortally offended souls was Ian Beattie.
It seems, however, (Letters, September 10) that he finds it quite acceptable to call Boris Johnson a “criminal” and a “prat”, Liz Truss “stupid” and an “idiot”, the government collectively as “planks” and all of us who exercised our democratic right to vote for Brexit as “baa-heids”.
I’ll leave it to your readers to decide who is the more offensive.
Mike Masson, Oak Tree Avenue, Banchory.
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