Letters: The frightening ease with which Wales imposed arbitrary restrictions

SIR – I am now genuinely frightened. Not by the coronavirus, even though I am 80. We have spent the last eight months learning about the risk and how to try to keep safe.

What is frightening is the ease with which the First Minister and the Welsh government closed down Wales and its economy.

As we approach Remembrance Day, we recall those who gave their lives for us to be free. Now we face tyranny from our own government. It will be a long way back to freedom and true democracy.

Tony Craig
Mold, Flintshire

SIR – Listening to a parliamentary committee last week questioning two senior police officers about the rules in different tiers, I heard one say he was unable to answer at that time and the other gave a wrong answer.

This raises two questions. First, how many members of the public are aware of the subtle difference between the use of the word should, which implies advice, and must, which is a legal requirement?

Secondly, if I carefully ascertain the rules and determine that a course of action is not illegal, even if not advised, but then come across a police officer who, like his chief constable, has got the rules wrong, what is my position if he tries to arrest me or impose a spot fine?

Dr P D Hills
Norley, Cheshire

SIR – Isn’t it time we acknowledged the obvious? All that our senior politicians are concerned about is the legacy by which they will be judged – the number of Covid deaths.

The increased number of deaths from other causes relating to NHS neglect and delay, together with the social and economic impacts of Covid policies, will largely be obscured by history.

So the cycle of arbitrary lockdown constraints continues.

Mike Powell
Quorn, Leicestershire

SIR – With no end in sight to various levels of lockdown, it is time we recognised that we are being killed either by the virus or by the effects of lockdown.

The face coverings, the lack of hugs or kisses, the stress of unemployment are all things which are killing us.

Some parts of the country are under travel restrictions. We are prevented from holding our elderly loved ones. There is nothing to look forward to.

People are dying because they have been denied treatment they could normally have received. Mental illness is turning into an epidemic. The rate of suicide is up. The Government might just as well have turned off the oxygen.

This is not the alternative we want. If we are to die of disease, we want to live in the meantime. We want to dream big. We want to love our families like normal human beings.

We want to be able to be joyful, to go to places and find them open. It seems our Government would rather kill us.

Hugh French
Farnham, Surrey

Free children’s meals

SIR – There is nothing as permanent as a temporary government programme, so it’s inevitable that year-round free school meals will become part of our welfare system. This is problematic.

Free meals control how the poor raise their children, reflecting Victorian notions that they make bad decisions. This infantilises the parents and stigmatises the children. Surely better policies are available.

Dr Chris O’Leary
Wildboarclough, Cheshire

SIR – I am mystified by Marcus Rashford’s campaign for free school meals to be extended into the holidays. Why is it necessary when most parents receive child benefit? If this allowance is not to assist with the cost of raising children, what is it for?

Nick Reilly
Esher, Surrey

SIR – While I have every sympathy with any parent who can’t afford to feed their children, I find it astonishing that so many in Britain apparently find themselves in this position. I thought the problems were that 63 per cent of all adults are overweight or obese, and that UK households throw 4.5 million tons of food away every year.

John Stewart
Terrick, Buckinghamshire

Trampling ramblers

SIR – Ben Goldsmith calls for people to have greater access to our countryside.

Three years ago we purchased a small piece of ancient woodland close to where we live. It’s a natural wonder, packed with wild flowers, deciduous trees and an abundance of wildlife.

We decided we would study it for a full year, through all four seasons, before making any plans to manage it. We met representatives from the Forestry Commission, who were helpful and informative. They emphasised that, as owners, we were custodians with an unwritten obligation to look after and preserve these wonderful natural habitats, maintaining and managing them as best we could for future generations – which we willingly accepted.

During that time, members of the public would walk through the wood. Most took nothing and left only footprints. Sadly, others used it as a latrine, dumped rubbish, removed timber, damaged trees, let their dogs run wild and generally disrespected the environment. As a result, we had to take measures to deter unauthorised access.

It’s a noble thought to allow others to roam the countryside freely and enjoy the riches it offers. However, despite the Countryside Code, the case still seems to be that the owner cherishes it most – and is left to clear up the mess left behind by others.

Rob Larkman
Taunton, Somerset

Legal poppies

SIR – May I ask Mark Drakeford whether a British Legion poppy is an essential or non-essential item, before I go to buy one and risk arrest?

Richard Woodmore
Penpedairheol, Glamorgan

Hello Kitty

SIR – I read recently that the feline equivalent of a smile is a slow blink.

In view of the ubiquity of face coverings, is this something that humans could adopt in order to lighten the depressing mood in public places? Or could there be better alternatives?

Fred Sommers
Eversley, Hampshire

Cold-water cure

SIR – I would like to add to Maria Lally’s article, “Hippocrates was right about the real benefits of wild swimming”.

Thirty years ago I was part of a trial to investigate Hippocrates’ saying that “cold bathing is beneficial for those accustomed to it”. It was set up by the late Professor Vijay Kakkar, director of the Thrombosis Research Institute, London. For three months we sat in increasingly cold baths up to our necks for increasing periods of time. This acclimatisation protected us from hypothermia, and we experienced many of the beneficial effects identified by Mrs Lally.

There were two surprising discoveries. The first was how quickly the immune system sprang into action: my T-cell lymphocytes, which fight infection, increased by 15 per cent after five minutes in my first cold bath.

Secondly, over the course of the trial, the blood supply to the brain increased markedly, due to widening of the carotid arteries in the neck. This may explain why cold-water swimming can help to lift depression, and shed light on its possible role in protecting against dementia.

For those who cannot swim in open water, and provided you are in good health, cold baths are the answer (cold showers do not cool the body down enough). Get in straight away, with water up to your neck. Slowly count to 20, by which time you will be acclimatised. A feeling of relaxation or elation will creep over you.

Originating in the village of Graefenberg (now Lázně Jeseník in the Czech Republic), the “cold-water cure” swept through Europe in the early 19th-century, reaching Great Malvern in 1842. Water consumption and bathing, plus exercise, worked wonders for the sedentary Victorians, who ate and drank too much. They were otherwise treated with opiates and heavy metals such as mercury, which made any illness worse.

Dr John Harcup
Malvern, Worcestershire

France and our fish

SIR – You report that Brexit talks have stalled because France will not compromise on fishing.

Does Emmanuel Macron realise that no deal means no fishing?

Charles Penfold
Ulverston, Cumbria

SIR – Whatever the outcome of the negotiations, does anyone seriously believe that French fishermen are going to stop using UK waters?

Steve Black
Nottingham

Making the most of a bumper garden harvest

SIR – I agree with the letters (October 22) about the abundance of garden produce this year. So far I have made three batches of crab-apple jelly, one litre of crab-apple gin and five pounds of green-tomato chutney.

Guess what the relatives are having for their Christmas presents.

Gillian Grinham
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

SIR – With regard to Barry L Cottle’s bumper crop of runner beans in Hertfordshire (Letters, October 22), exactly the same thing has happened here in Devon, and we are still picking them.

James W G Donahue
Brixham, Devon

SIR – I also had a good late-season crop of runner beans, in spite of them being blighted by blackfly early on. While others I know scrapped theirs, I let mine regrow from low down and, the second time round, they yielded well. You just need faith.

John Davis
Harpenden, Hertfordshire

SIR – Regarding my old friend Bob Salmon’s letter (October 22) about using wild sloes for gin, I’ve used damsons. Much better – you can eat the damsons afterwards. Scrumptious.

Audrey Buxton
Kenilworth, Warwickshire

It is Church Commissioners’ duty to fund clergy

SIR – Recent letters (October 24) on church expenditure missed one important fact, which is that the Church Commissioners could find the missing funds, and thus prevent parishes having to combine and so water down the clergy even further. The decline in the numbers of priests over the past century (Letters, October 21) is staggering, yet fortunately the majority of churches still stand.

In the mid-1990s the commissioners relinquished responsibility for paying stipends and pensions because they had made disastrous investments. Parishes took over the job, and their parish shares, contributing to diocesan funds, went up. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, these higher parish shares are now unsustainable.

By 2003, church income had recovered to its pre-1990s level, and by 2017 had become very rosy. But the commissioners did not take back responsibility to pay clergy stipends and pensions. They spend only about a third of their £900 million income on the serving parish clergy. We hear that funds are earmarked for “projects”, yet committees only dream up projects when there are funds for them. Talk of diversity, inclusivity and health and safety should be put aside, and focus given instead to what matters – the Church of England’s parish work.

It is the commissioners’ moral responsibility to prevent a further reduction in clergy, pay them a fair stipend, and cut administration costs and unnecessary staff.

Raymond J Walker
Wilmslow, Cheshire

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