Our country has been very badly failed

We are so used to hearing bad news that it is sometimes hard to comprehend just how badly Britain has handled this pandemic.

How can a country with our resources end up with one of the worst death rates in the world?

The Scottish Government has been no better than the UK Government and it has been a disaster. Everyone knows all the mistakes that have been made but what is even worse is that we are still, a year on, making the same mistakes all over again, and hearing the same apologies.

It is appalling and I hope some day, there will be a proper accounting for what happened in Britain.

Every country has struggled with difficult decisions, but what happened here has been appalling. Edie Sutherland, Edinburgh

Grievously funny

I’m 71 and my husband is 91. He played ice hockey until he was 87.

We have a granddaughter and three grandsons and love them very much. In Oor Wullie a while ago, there was a man called Mr Grieve. I kept it to show the wee ones, who love their grandpa Robert. This Mr Grieve looked just like him.

We laughed and laughed and had a nice wee hour. Covid, of course, has left us housebound. It felt so good to laugh at something. Sheila Grieve, Inchinnan

Too far for fish

Why do Scottish fishermen drive trucks hundreds of miles to the bottleneck at Dover rather than organising a ferry to the continent from Aberdeen?

Secondly, why do we in Scotland have to buy farmed salmon from Norway, and shell fish from Vietnam? Come on, Scottish fishermen – look after the people in Scotland.

M Anderson, Moniaive

No defence on wall

I refer to the piece about Hadrian’s Wall in Memories. When I visited the wall in the ’80s it was billed as the “northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire”.

Of course the fact is that the Roman Empire extended much further north and the wall was built through the middle of Northumbrian territory to administer and tax the tribe, not as a defensive structure.

It did not become the frontier until 30 years after it was finished. Jim Mckillop, by email

Farmy resemblance

Spanish restaurateur Fabio Peral should not have been surprised that his customers could not tell the difference between Scottish and Norwegian salmon in last week’s Sunday’s Post.

Most salmon farms in Scotland are owned by Norwegian companies and the salmon they supply were most likely reared from salmon eggs imported from Norway before the import was banned last year due to disease risks.

John F Robins, Animal Concern

A risky gambit

I taught my wife to play chess after watching Queen’s Gambit but now she’s beating me every night.

So, do any readers have any new boxset suggestions?

Stuart Watson, by email