My dismay at choice of frieze

I NOTE with interest your coverage of criticism the Scottish Commemorations Panel, which is accused of “schoolboy errors” particularly with regard to the dates chosen to commemorate Gallipoli (“War centenary service timing is condemned”, The Herald, May 26 and Letters, May 26). I decided to have a look at the Scottish Commemorations Panel website at www.scotland.gov. uk/About/Review/WW1-Commemoration-Panel and I was intrigued to find a banner image there that I had not seen before. A brief internet search helped me to discover that the image is one of the panels from the Aux Lillois memorial which commemorates the inhabitants of Lille, France, who died in the First and Second World War.

No doubt there will be someone connected to the panel who will put a spin on this choice, but why are images of French soldiers being used in a Scottish context when we already have the magnificent friezes on the Scots-American War Memorial in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens and the even more magnificent friezes in the shrine of the Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle?

Presumably the panel members were chosen for their competence and historical knowledge, but the choice of this frieze would make one speculate that we are seeing yet another schoolboy error. Ben McEwen, Cramond Brig Toll, Edinburgh. THOUSANDS flocked to Belleisle Park in Ayr over the weekend to celebrate the legacy of Robert Burns in Scotland’s Year of Homecoming at the Burns an’ a’ that! Festival, which saw acts such as horse, pictured, perform. For a gallery of pictures from the event, visit www.heraldscotland.com/arts-ents.