Should the Queen have welcomed McGuinness?

I’M DISGUSTED by Lord Tebbit’s suggestion that someone from the Real IRA might shoot Martin McGuinness in the back (Mail). It stinks of the worst kind of Unionism. Such people in the Tory Party need to try to move forward as the Queen and everyone involved in the peace process has, doing all they can to resolve those unfortunate times. Had Lord Tebbit and his leader Mrs Thatcher been prepared to speak to those people, the Brighton bombing — along with all the other atrocities committed by the UDA, UFF, UVA and other organisations, causing great grief to everybody else — might not have happened. Lord Tebbit should be made to apologise to everyone concerned for his remarks.

STEVE SMITH, Stockport, Cheshire. I WAS shaken to see a photo of my Head of State, Her Majesty The Queen, shaking the hand of Martin McGuinness (Mail). Now, despite having refused to give the parliamentary oath of allegiance to the Queen, he’s been to a white-tie State banquet at Windsor Castle. This is personally insulting me and all my still living and dead colleagues and friends. I was an Army bomb-disposer in Northern Ireland in the early years (1971) of the Troubles. I was there because my country sent me to help keep the peace and to provide an element of public safety by preventing terrorist bombs detonating and killing innocent Ulster folk. I served in Londonderry, where McGuinness is thought to have been actively operating as a sniper. I was tasked to deal with a suspect bomb within range and sight of the fiercely Republican Creggan area. As I went forward alone to investigate the suspect item, I was shot at from the Creggan. The bullet smacked into the Tarmac a yard or so in front of me. Scary? you bet! The ‘bomb’ turned out to be a hoax, a situation now described as a classic ‘come-on’ ploy to attract security forces into a situation where they can be attacked from relative safety. Someone tried to murder me — and RUC intelligence at the time strongly indicated who that someone was. That’s why I view so badly the misguided attempt to rehabilitate McGuinness into any semblance of respectability. Too many of my bomb disposal comrades were killed or maimed in Northern Ireland: it’s an insult to their memory.

Name and address supplied.