Snow-go schools

HEAD teachers are displaying such hypocrisy in closing schools because of the snow. They are quick enough to fine parents if a child misses one day of classes, citing the effects on their education, but then proceed to close schools for several days at the first prediction of snow.

They send emergency planning letters to parents and preach with an air of authority that the safety of pupils is their utmost concern.

It is not their moral or legal duty to protect children coming to or leaving school — that is down to the parents. It is a head teacher’s role to ensure the school is open, heated and staffed correctly.

Teachers shouldn’t get paid for taking days off due to bad weather. And as for school closures for teacher training days . . .

PAUL STOKES, Chesterfield, Derbys. I WOULD like to salute the stalwart efforts of my milkman, who braved his way through this week’s deep snow to deliver milk and groceries to his pensioner customers. TED SHORTER, Tonbridge, Kent. WHy do the TV companies insist on sending out their reporters to stand in snow-laden fields or on the side of snow-covered roads to report on the weather? We all know what snow looks like.

Why does the country almost collapse at the first sign of a snowflake? For goodness sake, keep these poor, over-paid souls indoors.

C. NEWTON, Irthlingborough, Northants. THIS week, I boarded a coach at 5.45pm in Warsaw for a 12-hour journey to Budapest. The temperature was minus 11. The coach travelled from Poland through Slovakia, where the temperature fell to minus 14, and finally to Hungary.

There was snow the whole way and it was so cold there was frost inside the windows.

The coach arrived in Budapest at 5.51am, just six minutes late.

Excuse me for laughing at the chaos in Britain caused by

nowhere near such inhospitable conditions. GEORGE FISHER, Blyth, Northumberland.