£25 STAR LETTER

Why we felt so lucky in Christmases past

Christmas coming again got me thinking of my childhood. Six bairns in two rooms, but it wasn’t a miserable Christmas for us.

A lot of folk in Montrose, Angus, where I was born, were the same. It was war time and we were working class. My dad was in the Merchant Navy. Mum told us to send our letters up the lum, or chimney as we call it now.

We got a stocking filled with an apple, nuts, sweets, maybe chocolate, no bananas (there was a war on), or an orange.

An annual, mine was Rupert Bear, a game and a toy. We all thought how lucky we were.

– Una Gahan, Runcorn Pic perfect

The best of The Sunday Post are The Broons and Oor Wullie, which are really great.

I was brought up with both from about five. Now I am 72 years old and still get The Broons book and Oor Wullie every year when they are out.

– J Simpson, Airdrie Gosh darn it!

Not being so agile as I used to be, I asked a friend to get me some darning wool, and gave her two differentcoloured socks I wished to darn.

She has a friend who runs a market stall in our local area, but when she asked for darning wool, she was told, “Oh, nobody darns socks nowadays”.

However, she did get the required wool.

My question is, if people don’t darn socks, what do they do with them?

– Monica Blood, Notts Rail bargain

Just back from Italy, travelled by train from Venice to Rome (about same distance from Glasgow to London) for less than 10.

– J Trainer, Glasgow Green dream

The UN Environmental Program recently said that the voluntary national contributions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions agreed three years ago in Paris would have to triple to cap global warming below 2C.

It will not happen. The US has reiterated its decision to “withdraw” from the Paris agreement and the new president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has signified his intent to withdraw from the accord. This is expected to lead to other nations pulling out of the Paris agreement.

It is ironic that the two-week UN climate summit is in Katowice, Poland, “the coal capital” of Europe, and that the Polish government has just announced plans to open a new coal mine.

There is clearly no global willingness of 183 countries to treble CO2 reductions despite all the alarmist predictions, but the UN no doubt will dress up the conference as a success. The UK and Scotland, two of only a handful of nations to have legallybinding Climate Change Acts, should repeal them, slash renewables subsidies and grow the economy.

– Clark Cross, Linlithgow Going logo

It beggars belief that £73,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent to design a logo for the new Scottish Benefits Agency.

The logo consists of three simple irregular rectangles meant to represent the outline of Scotland but bereft of any islands.

It would have been better, at a fraction of the cost, having a competition with schools to design a more meaningful logo to represent dignity and fairness in Scottish society.

– Dennis Grattan, Aberdeen