Hope for ’ Hunter‘ boys like my Sam
OUR son, Sam, is a ‘ victim’ of the Hunter Syndrome which affected Jacob Wragg (Mail) but is far from deaf, dumb, incontinent or heading towards a vegetative state. I’ve just sent him off to school with his football kit.
As with many genetic disorders, the sufferers ( nearly always boys) share common symptoms but with varying degrees of severity. Sam has problems and the condition is progressive and degenerative — but there is hope. Sam is fortunate to be taking part in a drug trial that involves weekly intravenous infusions. This has been going on for 18 months now and we can already see an improvement. More significantly, there has been no deterioration.
However, Sam is just one of a small group of ‘Hunter’ boys who are receiving this treatment — there are many more waiting.
Needless to say, the prospect of the drug being licensed and made available depends on cost and whether our boys are considered worth the expense.
JOANNE DACEY, Royston, Herts.
Mum knows best
PARENTING ( Femail) is an ongoing learning process. Every baby is unique and they learn from you as you learn from them. No one parenting book can give you all the advice you need. My husband and I have used three books to help us in making decisions concerning our two-year- old (Babies by Dr Christopher Green, The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and Your Baby & Child by Penelope Leach). Each suggests very different parenting styles.
Our son had never been an easy sleeper and, despite following advice from our health visitor and using the books we had, nothing seemed to work.
In the end, I stuffed the books away and resolved to follow my own instincts. The result is a little boy who loves his bed and trots off to it happily every night, sleeping through until the morning.
It took me five months to achieve this, but with love, patience and determination I did it, trusting my ever-growing understanding of my child and what makes him tick. My advice to all new and would- be parents is to buy a variety of parenting books and to use them for the wealth of information they provide.
But they are just there for guidance. You’re the only ones who truly know your child, so trust your feelings and follow them.
Mrs FIONA WILES, Ashford, Kent.
Tory minority
IT SEEMS to be accepted that the Conservative Party should reflect the full range of the hopes and aspirations to be found in modern Britain. One group that seems to have been overlooked is the 93 per cent that went to state schools.
Less than half ( 40 per cent) of Conservative MPs went to state schools while the rest went to private/public schools — which educate only 7 per cent of the general population. JOHN LODGE, Lancaster.
Imperial view
NO ACCOUNT of Napoleon’s errors (Mail) is complete without mention of his ruthless imposition of the metric system on every country he conquered.
His armies conquered most of Europe and forced each of them to adopt the metric system, but by 1811 Napoleon was saying: ‘I can understand the 12th part of an inch but not the thousandth part of a metre.’
In 1812, he could no longer stand the metric system, saying: ‘The scientists had another idea which was totally at odds with the benefits to be derived from the standardisation of weights and measures; they adapted to them the decimal system, on the basis of the metre as a unit; they suppressed all complicated numbers.
‘ Nothing is more contrary to the organisation of the mind, of the memory and of the imagination.’
‘ The new system of weights and measures will be a stumbling block and the source of difficulties for several generations . . . It’s just tormenting the people with trivia.’
Later, he suspended the system in France completely.
RON PHILLIPS,
Address supplied. metric
Miles better for Maya
THE case of Maya Evans being prosecuted under the anti- terrorism law should have been thrown out of court.
She was prosecuted for making an illegal protest within one kilometre of Parliament Square — but road distances in kilometres or metres are illegal in this country.
There have been cases in which local authorities have put up road signs giving distances in the metric scale and residents have objected and the courts have ruled that they should be changed back to miles and yards.
GRAHAM LENCH,
Stoke-on-Trent. I RECALL Winston Churchill’s 1945 election address in which he warned of the ‘Socialist Gestapo’ — whose days now seem to have arrived when first, thugs forcibly remove a heckler from a party conference, and then a posse
of police arrest a single protester merely reading aloud a list of service personnel killed in an illegal war.
Democracy, what crimes are committed in thy name!
W. D. MALTBY,
Ashby de la Zouch, Leics.
Dream date
I JUST wanted it on record that the other night I dreamt I was in a room with Tony Blair and a few other people, and he said to us: ‘ October 21 — that’s it — that’s my last day. Now I suppose you’ll want to go and tell everyone.’
So I went outside, found a phone box and called the Press with the good news. I can’t tell you how worried I’ll be if it comes true.
JOHN WHAPSHOTT,
Westbury, Wilts.
Fifties classic
I RECALL watching a BBC series based on the children’s book The Silver Sword (Letters) on Sundays for eight weeks in the late Fifties.
I was only about ten years old and for me it was the highlight of the week. The main character was a young boy played by Frazer Hines. It was a wonderful story for young children.
KATHY ANDERTON, Leicester.
Passing fag
FURTHER to Christmas gifts for teacher (Mail), in the early Seventies, the gift of choice for our teacher, Mr Parkes, was 20 Senior Service. We knew what he smoked because his fags were always beside the ashtray on his desk. How times change …
KIM LEWIS,
Hucclecote, Gloucs.
Fancy footwork
WHEN I was born, nearly 69 years ago in Lancaster Royal Infirmary, I was diagnosed as having club feet (Good Health).
I weighed only 4lb, so my feet were taped up with finger tape. This was removed every day and my mother stroked my feet from heel to toe with a safety pin point on the advice of the doctor at the Royal. It made my feet jump and straighten.
I was sent to dancing class at the age of three to strengthen my legs and feet. I’ve been a dancing teacher since I was 15 — and have no thoughts of giving up yet.
Mrs MAUREEN BELLINGHAM,
Brampton, Cumbria.
Brief encounter
FURTHER to those M&S ‘stocking fellas’ (Mail), years ago I worked for a local fashion store where, one Christmas, I was the only male member of staff.
I was told to hover near the entrance to assist any gentlemen looking for ladies’ underwear. Late on Christmas Eve, an elderly chap approached me and said he was looking for some knickers for his wife. I escorted him to the lingerie section and waited while the young lady attended to him.
‘What size and type of knickers would you like?’ she asked.
‘Well,’ he replied. ‘She’s rather big and likes the “ harvest home” sort; you know, “ all is safely gathered in.” ’
The assistant sent him off happily clutching the largest pair of elasticated bloomers she could find.
CYRIL AMEY, Cowes, IoW. WHEN buying a bra for my wife from the ‘stocking fellas’ (Mail), I told him she was a ‘sassy party girl’ with a 38in bust.
Was he going beyond the call of duty when he asked for her phone number to offer after sales service?
RON COULTHARD,
Sunderland, Tyne & Wear.
Bigger bang
THE Buncefield explosion wasn’t the biggest in peacetime Europe ( Mail). At the end of World War II, Europe was littered with tens of thousands of tons of shells, bombs and other high explosives which required disposal.
They were accumulated on the heavily fortified German offshore island of Heligoland.
When they were exploded, the noise reverberated around the North Sea far into England, France, Germany and Eastern Europe, and reduced the fortifications to rubble. By comparison, the Buncefield oil depot explosion ‘ bang’ pales into insignificance.
F. G. GRISLEY, Barry, Glamorgan.
Cold-shouldered
MY daughter, driving along the M6 to Birmingham, had an appointment at the International Conference Centre but realised she had lost her way.
Spotting a police patrol car (Warwickshire Force) parked on the hard shoulder, she pulled over seeking directions. The policeman advised her that she needed to leave at junction 6, for which she was most grateful. He then proceeded to write out a £30 fixed penalty notice, explaining that it was an offence to stop on the hard shoulder unless it was an emergency. She thought he was joking at first but he was quite serious — those directions cost her £30.
Whatever happened to the ever-helpful British bobby?
D. FARTHING, Evington, Leics.
Squared off
THE claim that the famous ‘ ten- square’ problem had just been solved was a surprise to me as I’ve produced more than 2,000 such squares, the best of which have been published over the last three years in Word Ways.
I’ve been an innovator in all forms of large word square and these set a new standard, all their words being found in reference works.
The example published (Mail) was in fact a mongrel 4/ 5/ 6/ 10 square of only trivial difficulty.
The two other people who have produced ten- squares recently (Ross Eckler and Jeff Grant) agree that my squares have essentially solved the problem and that my ‘ Descendant’ square is the best found.
REX GOOCH,
Letchworth, Herts.
First-footing
IT’S little known that during the Cold War, a Russian submarine surfaced for repairs in Lochbuie, Isle of Mull, and some haggis (Letters), carried aboard for fresh meat, escaped and swam ashore. These were the Siberian ( or Left- Footed) haggis Haggoides Sibiricus.
It’s not known if they succeeded in cross- breeding with the local right- footed species, H. Caledonicus, running as they do in the opposite direction round the mountains (I’d be grateful for details of the pedal extremities of any cross- bred animals shot or captured).
But the Russian specimens may have been sterilised by the nuclear reactor on board.
GEORGE SASSOON,
Lochbuie, Mull and
Sutton Veny, Wilts. A LOT of rubbish has recently been written about the haggis without addressing the real issue: the lucrative trade in haggis skins.
Surely it’s not beyond the capabilities of modern science to manufacture sporrans from artificial fur?
Close down the haggis farms, I say.
JOHN COLLIER, Wyton, East Yorks.