BBC 1’s The Repair Shop

Scottish Water is not privately run and owned like the utility businesses in England which pay billions of pounds of profits to share holders.

When Mrs Thatcher wanted to privatise Scottish Water, we resisted so much that she had to change her mind. Scottish Water is publicly owned by us for us.

At the moment Scotland continues to ban fracking for gas and oil from shale, where as England has now agreed to issue new fracking licences.

The “right to roam” in Scotland has been established since 2003, unlike in England where rules on public access to land are much stricter.

Labour is not going to protect or care about keeping Scottish Water in public ownership, our ban on fracking or the hard won right to roam, as Labour cannot deliver these protections in England. Equalising everyone in the Union would mean we in Scotland would lose essential environmental safeguards and suffer loss of distinctively Scottish rights and privileges.

Tricia Grey, Lochgilphead.

BBC One’s The Repair Shop team is thinking ahead to its Christmas special and asking viewers to be on the lookout for any cherished items that may have been hidden away or forgotten about last year.

The barn’s resident horologist Steve Fletcher and leather expert Suzie Fletcher think this may be the time of year to prompt conversations with family. Suzie said: “It comes around very quickly, so we need all of your wonderful items. I’m sure during Christmas you exchanged lots of stories as your family got together, maybe it jogged a few memories! Please put your items forward…we’d love to see what you’ve got.”

Steve said: “We’re looking for all sorts of things – it could be a toy, it could be a book, it could be anything associated with Christmas and has an amazing story or amazing memory. If you’ve got anything like that you think would make a really good item on the show, please apply.”

The Repair Shop’s presenter, Jay Blades, said: “We’re always performing magic at the Repair Shop barn but there’s always something a bit more special at Christmas – and we would love to hear from people with objects of historical or social interest in need of repair with a festive feel to them. Items that make us remember Christmas’s of yester-year.”

Please email applications@ricochet.co.uk or log on to www.bbc.co.uk/takepart for more information.

Sean Reilly, casting researcher.