Inside Transport

Walking has benefits but are you taking advantage, asks Alastair Dalton

Man of his time

John Lloyd gives a rounded v i e w o f L o r d Nel s o n , r e f u ting the partial or false “racist” asser tions around him (Letters, 10 November).

B u t Ne l s o n d i d o r d e r h i s sailors to “hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil” – possibly excusable in wartime, but almost cer tainly worse than anything he said about nonE u r o p e a n r a c e s , a n d c o n - d e m n e d b y B e r t r a n d R u s - sell as an extreme example of where nationalism can lead.

H owe ve r, wh e t h e r o r n o t s o m e o f j o u r n a l i s t A f u a Hi r s c h’s p o i n t s a r e va l i d , i t would hardly b e surprising from the evidence of the world they inhabited and their limited knowledge of the rest of the world, if those like Nelson, David Hume, and others (such as even Gandhi in his early South African years) did exhibit racist characteristics. Almost ever yone then did; it would have been much more remarkable if they did not. If you were a citizen of a small island off the north-west coast of Europe which created the largest global empire in histor y, you were almost pre-destined to believe in the superiority of your race, as most previous imperialists did.

That in no way excuses the brutal industrial-scale Atlantic slave trade, begun by Portugal and then dominated by the UK from c1700 for 130 years, which of course needs to be fully acknowledged (including by our complicit “Christian” churches) – as long as it is also recognised that this could not possibly have happened for so long or to the dreadful extent that it did, without the continuous supply of slaves sold willingly by the African kings a n d c h i e f s f r o m t h e i r ow n people they wanted rid of and from their captives from other tribes.

F i n a l l y , t h o s e b r i n g i n g C h u r c h i l l i n t o t h e i r a l l - e mb r a c i n g d e n o f i n i q u i t y mi g h t c o n s i d e r t h a t h e d i d more to combat racism than anyone else in his lifetime.

of Scotland harbouring more pro-uk voters are hammered. I do not see what other interp r e t a t i o n c o u l d b e p u t o n some of her decisions.

ALEXANDER MCKAY New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh