LETTERS

No to gender neutral loos

CONGRATULATIONS to sarah Vine for highlighting the foolishness of gender neutral toilets and to the sensible Home office ladies who are refusing to use them (Mail).

while i have the utmost sympathy with the minuscule number of people who feel gender dysfunctional, surely this does not warrant the excessive pandering to a tiny minority in the interests of equality, but at the expense of the general public who have to bear the consequences.

what is even more disturbing is that there are calls for primary school children to be instructed on transgender issues, which should not be inflicted on young, immature minds.

responsible parents must exercise their right to withdraw their children from these classes, and the public should follow the example of the Home office ladies.

DAVID MORGAN, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. For the Home office to spend £36,000 to convert male and female loos into gender neutral toilets is bad enough, but £ 8,000 for the signs is extraordinary. who did them — Michelangelo?

CHRIS SHARP, Leeds. TORQUAY Council has gone one better than the Home office. The five men’s and five ladies’ loos at the harbour have been converted into six gender neutral toilets at the cost of half a million pounds. And it now costs you 30p to spend a penny.

PETER PHILLIPS, Torquay, Devon.

Up in smoke

WHY have MPs recommended the relaxing of public vaping? it is a pleasure to go out to a bar and not go home stinking like an ashtray.

when you walk down the street and pass someone vaping, it is like walking behind a steam train, so thick is the fog and the smell is so pungent.

TOM BELL, Whitehaven, Cumbria. WHAT else can they put on prescription? if the weak-minded don’t have the will to quit smoking, is it right to reward them with vaping equipment as a substitute?

i’m partial to a couple of beers, but if i couldn’t afford them i wouldn’t expect the NHS to pay for them.

A. B. MEDLEY, address supplied.

Pain of loneliness

I DISAGREE with steph and Dom’s advice to a man who has started another relationship while caring for his sick wife (inspire). i lost my wife after 25 years of marriage, but for the final five years i was her carer after she had suffered a severe stroke and had other health issues that left her bedbound or in a wheelchair.

i felt i had lost my loving wife. i cared for her to the best of my abilities, but after four years of loneliness i started a new relationship.

i told my wife, who though not agreeing, accepted it. Because i was far more relaxed and happier, i was a better carer for her.

if steph or Dom were in a similar situation, i wonder if they would stand by their advice? ANDREW FIREBRACE,

Amorosa, Portugal.

Slippery slope

FOLLOWING last month’s ruling by the supreme Court on withholding nourishment from certain patients, the BMA wishes to go a little step further.

All in the best interest of the patient, of course. And so it will progress until we will arrive at a time when anyone considered not ‘normal’, too expensive or in the way of an inheritance will have to go. it happened with abortion and it will happen with euthanasia.

L. GILES, Coventry.

Keep it Open All Hours

AS A former resident of Thornbury, i am appalled that riddiford’s, the shop that inspired the TV comedy show open All Hours, is under threat because of one complaint.

This shop is an institution. Many times i have driven down Thornbury High street in the dead of night and, lo and behold, riddiford’s was open.

whoever complained about the fruit and veg display on the pavement should be ashamed of themselves. There is plenty of room on the pavement to pass by.

BLEDDYN W. PUGSLEY, Chepstow, Monmouthshire. HAVE the health ’n’ safety department got nothing better to do than investigate a shop after a single complaint about a veg box blocking the pavement?

on the avenue on which i live, they would have a field day. not only are cars parked on the paved-over front gardens, they are blocking half the width of the pavement. PETE WILLIAMS, Hayes, Middlesex.

Banking on Brexit

RBS has threatened to move its billions abroad after Brexit.

its chief executive, ross McEwan, would do well to demonstrate to his customers and the British tax-paying shareholders that the bank ‘is working to improve standards’ instead of scaremongering about Brexit.

Perhaps he would like to explain how the wholesale closure of local branches improves ‘standards of service’ beyond what i have received from the excellent staff at my local sheffield Hillsborough branch, which is closing later this month.

RoD BLY, Sheffield.

FIRST we had fruit and veg growers, now we have football club chairmen claiming Brexit will be terrible for us all.

You would have thought a club chairman would want to save money on players, but apparently they are more than willing to pay extortionate agents’ fees to buy players from abroad.

All this fake and naive scaremongering is pathetic. After Brexit, the cabbages will still get picked and footballs will still get kicked.

STEFAN BADHAM, Portsmouth, Hants.