LETTERS

Nothing on TV

I COULDN’T agree more with Robin Mayhew that there is simply nothing to watch on the telly (Letters).

Having always been a Corrie and EastEnders fan, I now find them most unentertaining with their ridiculous storylines and concentration on misery and disaster.

The same goes for dramas full of violent, foul-mouthed and depressing situations.

Even if you find something interesting to watch, there are so many adverts that you lose the plot.

Maybe I’m grumpy, too, but can we not have some cheerful and happy TV shows? After all, there is enough misery and violence in the world. YVONNE DICKENS, Upminster, Essex. THE best TV shows I’ve seen recently were on BBC4 simply showing craftsmen at work. What was even better was that there was no intrusive background music.

NEVILLE WITHErS, London W3. I AGREE with Christopher Stevens’s review of the TV comedy Man Down that its jokes were borrowed from the likes of Tony Hancock. But what about the profanity?

I have worked in factories and on building sites where we moderated our language out of respect for those around us. But too many comedians think humour must involve foul language to get a titter.

TrEVOr MUrDIN, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

Final resting place

I AGREE that they should not raise the Lisbon Maru (Letters), where so many British PoWs lost their lives.

My father was one of the survivors and said little about his experiences to his family, except just once when he told my daughter the sea should be the ship’s final resting place.

Every year since my father died, I have had a cross placed at Westminster in memory of all those who lost their lives on the Lisbon Maru.

C. P. MOYSE, Quedgeley, Glos.

Police priorities

WHAT appals me about the dinner party from hell (Mail) is not what went on between a number of people worse for drink, but that the police could spend hours investigating an alleged assault when, due to budget constraints, officers will not be available to marshal Melton Mowbray’s Remembrance Parade.

JEaN CaMPTON, Hinckley, Leics.

Danger drivers

I HAVE also seen the most extraordinary and dangerous behaviour by drivers (Letters). In busy South London, I drew up at traffic lights to see the woman in the car adjacent to me doing her knitting.

The needles were clicking furiously as she finished the row before the lights turned green.

aNNE COE, Poole, Dorset. I GOT a panic phone call from my boss asking me to take his insurance details to the local police station.

He had been driving on the M1 when he got flagged down by the police for talking on his mobile and writing in his notepad balanced on the steering wheel.

Surprisingly, he did not get banned — just a fine and points.

Name and address supplied. I SAW a car negotiating a roundabout with a white stick poking out of an open window. The driver was grinning at a camera on the end of the stick — yes, he was taking a selfie.

JEFF BEST, London N14.

Noble mums

CONGRATULATIONS to Sarah Vine, who has the courage to admit that children suffer if both parents go out to work — even though she considers herself guilty of doing this (Mail).

How can a woman be expected to juggle caring for her offspring and holding down a full-time job without suffering from stress?

The Government should be held to account because it encourages both parents to work. While this may be advantageous to the economy, it does so at a cost to the wellbeing of children and parents.

Instead of being made to feel guilty, as is often the case, stay-at-home mothers should be applauded.

DaVID MOrGaN, Shrewsbury.

As you like it

POOR little Cambridge students who have to be protected from the horrors of Shakespeare plays (Mail).

When I was 11, fresh out of primary school, in my English class we studied King Lear — not a lovely comedy such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but a cruel and dramatic tragedy.

If anything was guaranteed to put a child off Shakespeare for life, it was that experience. But for me, it had the opposite effect.

I have seen every Shakespeare play, including the gory Titus Andronicus, and enjoyed them all. I say thank you to my teacher, dear Miss Evans, for introducing me to William Shakespeare and his glorious works.

I never came to any harm from my exposure at an early age.

SHEILa BraND, London N20. WHY weren’t the students who felt intimidated and afraid to speak their minds about politics given trigger warnings so they could retreat to

their safe spaces before they were bombarded with anti-Brexit propaganda? Mrs J. M. GRINNELL, Mawgan Porth, Cornwall.

Climate of fear

VISITING the university I had attended in the late Sixties, I challenged the economics professor about why universities were anti- Brexit and students were against change.

He admitted youngsters were not of the same calibre as our generation and do not embrace change like we did.

Grade inflation had resulted in a culture of over- expectancy among students.

Not enough is taught about the pluses and minuses of an argument ( a bit like the referendum) and fear has now taken the place of balanced discussions.

G. BYRNE, Snettisham, Norfolk. I ENJOYED the joke that the Oxbridge admissions system ‘is unfairly skewed against people of low intelligence’ (Letters). Judging by recent censorious, politically correct, no-platforming, history-denying antics at Oxford, Cambridge and other groves of academe, they seem biased against high intelligence, logic and common sense.

F. HARVEY, Bristol.

Euro visions

LEFT-WING bias in education is nothing new. When my daughter was in primary school, she brought home a geography booklet biased in favour of the EU.

I protested to her teacher and was told they used the booklets because they were free! I told him the children should be told the whole story, not just the EU version.

He agreed my daughter need not continue using the booklet, but the rest of the class had to carry on with it.

Mrs TRUDY DRAPER, Ashurst Wood, W. Sussex. HAVING studied politics and philosophy at Bristol University in the late Fifties, I entered university as a passionate Conservative and left as a Labour-voting Leftie.

However, thanks to the inspiring lectures of Dr R. V. Sampson I gained an abiding curiosity for political ideas. And I’m proud to have voted for Brexit in the referendum.

GRAHAM KING, Swansea.

Give me sunshine

WHAT is the benefit of changing the clocks twice a year?

If we have to do it, surely it would be better to ensure it stays lighter longer in the evenings in December, instead of getting dark at 4pm and making people feel down.

David Cameron promised us double summer time — another promise his Government failed to carry out. L. MARPLES, address supplied.