LETTERS

History repeating itself

HOW many more lives will be lost in tower block fires? In 2009, my pregnant granddaughter and her two children were living in Lakanal House, a high-rise in Camberwell, South London.

Her mother was visiting and smelled smoke. On opening the front door of the flat to see what was the cause of the smell, she found herself faced with a pall of black smoke.

She immediately told her daughter to soak towels and, covering their faces, they all managed to make their way down the corridor to the stairwell. The smoke was so dense they couldn’t see, but they got down the stairs and out of the building.

Others were not so lucky: six of my granddaughter’s neighbours were killed and 20 injured.

The inquest found the fire had spread unexpectedly fast, trapping people in their homes, with the exterior cladding panels burning through in just four-and-a-half minutes.

I had many conversations after this traumatic event with staff at Southwark Council and all sorts of promises were made.

It was said the tower block would be knocked down and other flats would be revamped, with more safety precautions put in place.

So, what has happened? The building has been rebuilt and people are living in it.

It seems nothing has been learnt. Just as happened at Lakanal House, people in Grenfell Tower were told not to evacuate but to stay in their flats, and the fire brigade were unable to reach the upper floors of the block. Who will be called to account?

HEATHER MITCHELL,

Polegate, E. Sussex.

Needless chaos

I WAS struck by the chaos and confusion after the catastrophic events in London and Manchester.

I am haunted by the desperate pleas of people searching for loved ones, racing from hospital to hospital, trying to glean any information from Casualty departments, not knowing where to turn for assistance.

The terrible fire at Grenfell Tower highlighted the need for better coordination and cooperation between the emergency services to provide urgent information and advice to people under threat or searching for missing loved ones.

We need a national major incident response and coordination unit that could be mobilised immediately to any part of the country.

It could establish a helpline and register of people admitted to hospital so relatives can obtain details directly.

The local community’s offers of provisions and temporary accommodation could also be coordinated and supervised by this specialist unit.

EFROSYNI HOBBS, London SE9.

Fatal errors

AS A joiner with more than 40 years’ experience, I am convinced it is not the products used in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower that are to blame, but the application. I put the flame of a blowlamp onto a piece of Celotex and it burned; I took the flame away and it went out, as it does not burn on its own.

There are millions of homes with similar products in their floors, walls and roofs with no issues.

The problem lies with building regulations and the inspectorate, who are seemingly obsessed with ventilated cavities.

Celotex does not transmit damp, but at Grenfell Tower the ventilated cavity between the insulation and facing panel appears to have allowed the flames to spread so rapidly.

Tradesmen were under the impression the outer coating on the insulation was silver foil paper; it transpires it was paint. I tested this with a blowlamp and it will burn.

I imagine this paint covering was next to the ventilated cavity, which acted like a chimney. The fire did not spread internally, but externally.

It matters not what the outer panels were made from — if there had been no cavity, there would have been no external fire. ALAN RICHARDS,

Measham, Leics. IN ALL the recriminations and wild laying of blame about the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, there is one aspect that the outraged Left and metropolitan liberals have neglected.

The cladding that turned the building into a torch had been put on because of the obsession of these same people with green issues and global warming.

Dr L. B. SOKOLIC, London NW11.

The Selfish Sixties

I AM the same age as Jonathan Aitken, but, unlike him, I didn’t smoke cannabis in the Sixties, as he related in his experiences at the first pop festival at Monterey (Mail).

I worked hard, got married and bought a house. I didn’t go to pop festivals but, as a TV reporter, I did report the gang fights and other criminal offences that disfigured the one at Weeley in Essex in 1971.

I didn’t become Chief Secretary of the Treasury with a seat in the Cabinet, but neither did I commit perjury nor pervert the course of justice and go to prison.

I was proud to have a daughter, but I didn’t father one with someone else’s wife and not know about the girl until she was grown up.

Like millions who try to do the right thing, starting with not breaking the law, my recollections of the Swinging Sixties aren’t part of the gushing celebration of the counter- culture responsible for many of today’s social, health and crime problems.

It’s said that if you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t there. Well, I

was there, working hard and paying my taxes, as I still am.

MICHAEL COLE, Woodbridge, Suffolk.

Is prison rehab worth it?

WHAT a surprise that the Government’s £3.7 billion programme to help rehabilitate prisoners has failed

( Mail). So many Home Secretaries have made statements about how they are going to prevent re-offending, but they never succeed.

To be given a custodial sentence, a criminal has to be a repeat offender.

At a time when prison populations are increasing and officer numbers decreasing, lessening the chances of any worthwhile rehabilitation, is there any solution?

DEREK TAYLOR, Chester.

No laughing matter

WITH regard to Richard Littlejohn’s article on Jeremy Corbyn, I suspect that part of the problem is that the Labour leader looks so much like a TV version of a Marxist sociology professor that some people seem to think he must be a figure of fun.

They forget that some of the organisations he has sup- ported have killed and injured people and have done this country real harm.

After Trump was elected, there were rallies against him; in France, the constitutional parties supported Macron in his run-off with Marine Le Pen.

However, here we see people organising demonstrations in favour of Corbyn and minor political parties willing to join him. PETER DAVEY, Bournemouth, Dorset.

We are all British

YET another atrocity is perpetrated by a coward driving a van into a crowd.

The message needs to go out that anyone living in this country is British. Not British Protestant, British Muslim, British atheist, just British.

Let’s dispel the myth that everyone must integrate for there to be harmony — just look at the expats in Spain. People live where they are comfortable, their language is spoken and their culture is understood. But there needs to be a change of mindset.

The coward who blew himself up in Manchester wasn’t looking to kill Christians, he was just looking to kill. The attack in London was indiscriminate, as anyone of any faith could have been killed.

It is dangerous to portray these cowardly attacks as Islam versus Christianity. N. HARRISON, Middlesbrough.