Westside stories

It seems that when not much is going on, a small town is singled out for negative, damaging and destructive ‘‘reporting’’ . It’s Huntly’s turn again, and what a hatchet job the Times is doing on us.

It would be foolish to pretend that there are no social problems in Huntly, but why these need to be dwelled on to the exclusion of all else is a mystery. A few streets in part of Huntly west are not the whole of the town, nor are the people therein the whole of the population. Three derelict houses were shown in all their tagged dilapidation. The vast majority of houses here are not like that and are as good as houses anywhere.

Two citizens make it their business to paint out tagging in the town, and do an excellent job. Things like this were not, of course, mentioned. Nor, of course, were many of the positive aspects of Huntly, if any.

The image presented of Huntly is a gross distortion and people I have spoken to resent this as much as I do. Please remember that we have to live here, and that we would prefer not to have this sensationalist view of our town, with the crime and social problems seen as the norm, plastered on the front page of the paper day after day and now, I hear, on One news. It is small consolation that some other town will probably be singled out by the press for the privilege of

totally negative free publicity. A J Read

Huntly