Love, friends and the joy of being an older mum
I felt I had to reply to Dr Pixie McKenna’s experience of having her baby when she was 40. I, too, had a baby just before I was 40, but it was my fourth, not my first.
My first was born when I was 30, then I had the others at 32, 36 and nearly 40. I was very fortunate with all my pregnancies and labours, and my last birth lasted just 25 minutes.
I’d been told by a midwife that I would need a hospital delivery and certainly wouldn’t be able to breastfeed at 40. But Joanna was born at home and delivered by a brilliant midwife weighing 5½lb — and I breastfed for eight months.
It certainly wasn’t an easy time, with two others attending different schools, coming home each day to lunch and a three-year-old to care for as well. I had no car as most mothers do today. But I walked with the pram, and the toddler sat on a seat.
the nights were difficult, especially as Joanna had a night feed until she was eight months old — but it didn’t last for ever.
But with her love and caring ways, Joanna has more than made up for any difficult times, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
A bonus is that I have gained younger friends whom I met through her and as, at 85, I’m losing a lot of my own age group, I have very supportive younger ones who have always accepted me and never made me feel I was too old for them. Mrs DOREEN BUCKLAND,
Broxbourne, Herts.
PC ratings
the fact that sailors are no longer allowed pin-ups on board ship as they ‘might cause offence’ (Mail) shows why the Royal Navy has a recruitment problem.
the average young male — and they’re mostly male — thinking of a career in the Armed forces is looking for an exciting and demanding career that provides a sense of camaraderie.
On a ship, that sense of adventure, the in-jokes and bawdy humour is what makes a team.
there’s no room for precious individuals who will take offence at the slightest affront to their sensibilities. A much more pressing question is that so many of our ships are unfit for purpose or obsolete.
You would think the Admiralty had more important matters to deal with than some girly pictures, but it seems our admirals care more about toadying favour with politicians than protecting our shores.
JOHN HAYWARD, Shrewsbury.
Unaffordable housing
I’ HAVE a scrappy bit of land in a leafy part of Surrey, near hampton Court, where it might be possible to build a family home.
the planning application isn’t such a big deal, but elmbridge Council is demanding 37 per cent of the total build cost of £185,000.
this is its Community Infrastructure levy (CIL), which is supposed to support the provision of ‘affordable housing’.
If we accept that more homes are needed, perhaps two flats could be built instead of just one home — but the CIL would then be more than £85,000.
for small or medium- size businesses such as ours, bank loans are too difficult to obtain. Council bureaucracy impedes the banks from signing the most basic paperwork to let a loan go ahead.
Councils seem to want to share in the profit without any risk or participation in the stresses of construction. how many affordable homes will be built as a result of this policy? how can the authorities claim to support creating more homes, but then make it almost impossible by imposing taxes and regulations? PHILIPPE BASSETT, East Molesey, Surrey.
Locker room talk
THERE’S a distinct lack of cloakrooms and lockers for children in schools.
My twin grandsons attend a school with more than 1,000 pupils. there is nowhere for them to leave coats or books.
they refuse to wear coats even in the cold for fear of having them stolen. And as they have to move to a different classroom for each lesson while the teachers remain static, everything has to be carried back and forth each day, and they get detention if they mislay their sports gear. DIANORA BOND, Southwell, Notts.
Death-trap dryers
ONE of the treaty obligations of the EU is ‘to strengthen consumer protection’, but only Which? Magazine seems to take this obligation seriously by threatening legal action against the makers of ‘death-trap’ tumble dryers (Mail).
Meanwhile, the Government takes its default position of ‘do nothing’ to ensure the regulatory culture of institutional apathy is scrupulously preserved. BRIAN EDMONDS,
Farnham, Surrey.
Legal mutters
GYLES BRANDRETH is so right about mumbling on TV (Mail).
I blame Konstantin Stanislavski for his ‘method’. I imagine our voice and diction classes at lamda in the Sixties are no longer provided in drama schools.
the same problem arises at the bar. the number of barristers who mumble into their papers, neglecting their audience of judge and jury, is quite extraordinary. JOHN BROMLEY-DAVENPORT,
Malpas, Cheshire.
Dangerous days
SO VISITORS to the levant Mine in Cornwall (letters) experienced a ‘small sliver of what it must have been like to work in the deep, dark tunnels for hours on end’.
how do visitors gain access to the mines so a comparison can be made with the ‘man engine’ that was used to transport the men to the rock face in the 1900s?
It was the failure of a link at the top of the beam of the man engine that caused it to crash to the bottom of the shaft, killing 31.
how miners were able to leap from platform to platform after a shift slogging away at the granite is beyond belief. Don’t even think of health and safety.
HARRY KENNARD, Peasmarsh, E. Sussex.
Jones’s body blows
CLIVE WOODWARD’S interview with eddie Jones revealed the latter’s ‘obsession’ with beating the All Blacks. At 76, I’ve loved rugby union for most of my life, as a player and then as a spectator, but I’m dismayed by the current coach’s apparent policy of trying to inflict on opposing players as much damage as possible.
this is evidenced by the increasing number of injuries players are suffering, particularly blows to the head.
eddie Jones seems to want to instil fear of english rugby around the world: he referred to our game against france as ‘war’.
this is ridiculous. Rugby is a sport, not a battlefield. this is the message that should be conveyed to aspiring young players.
I was alarmed to read recently that english rugby players are being trained in martial arts. Why? In my youth, I once used a judo move to bring down a player in a school rugby match. I was immediately sent off, and the next day, in assembly, the headmaster shamed me by announcing that such behaviour would not be tolerated. there is and can be no place for martial arts in rugby.
As an england supporter, I would love to see the game played as it was in the days of Gareth edwards, Phil Bennett and J. P. R. Williams (all Welshmen). there’s little skill in trying to bulldoze your way through the opposition.
eddie Jones’s admiration for the All Blacks is well- deserved: he should show the same respect to our Six Nations opponents. PETER LEEVES,
Redhill, Surrey.