Sir, – I read with dismay that cricket at Morrison’s Academy, Crieff, will end.
The school says that cricket is far too complicated to learn and Scottish summers are far too damp for a wicket.
From 1972 until 1992, I taught primary school children of varying ability the basic skills of batting, bowling and fielding.
They were able further to develop these skills at their local cricket club, Arbroath United.
These were primary four to seven children.
On retiring in 1992 and until 2009, I continued to coach primary school children in Arbroath.
At the cricket club I set up a kinder group of five-year-olds.
They were able to learn the skills Morrison’s believe are complicated.
Quite a few of Arbroath United’s players began their careers in these primary school lessons.
One Arbroath primary school in both 2000 and 2002 became British Primary School Kwik Cricket Champions. It was not too complicated.
Summers are too damp for a decent wicket?
A wicket is made up of six stumps and two bails. The correct term is pitch.
All grounds are subject to the vagaries of the weather. I would have thought that Morrison’s would have a groundsman or grounds staff to prepare and upkeep all their sports pitches.
Have they never heard of covers to protect the pitches?
Christopher H Plomer. 96 East Muirlands Road, Arbroath.
Care fears for rural users
Sir, – I have beenreading your recent reports about carers.
I have carers employed by Perth and Kinross Council.
I find them pleasant, friendly and caring. But, yes, there is a but.
If a carer leaves their employment with the council they are not automatically replaced.
The council use a private company.
Their employees do not have the same contracts as council staff.
Under the 2013 Scotland Social Care Act, the council have a statutory duty to offer people choice on how their care is delivered.
There are a number of options such as purchasing carer support from a private agency or being provided with a direct payment to buy their own care.
I understand the private care agency the council use will not now cover rural areas.
Using a private agency is cheaper for the council.
I wonder if this is a way to balance their budget but at whose expense?
Elizabeth Mackenzie. 2 Daleroy Crescent, Tummel Bridge.
A90 flyover long overdue
Sir, – It is tremendous news that the Scottish Government has at last accepted the case for the flyover at the Laurencekirk junction on the A90.
But why has it taken it so long to come to this conclusion?
The junction is used daily by hundreds of Angus people travelling to Aberdeen to work.
Crossing on to the A90 is breathtakingly terrifying.
The Scottish Government found plenty cash to cushion the effects of austerity in the run up to the referendum but were a little silent on this vital link for working people.
Jill Fotheringham and her campaigners have to be congratulated.
It is difficult to sustain a campaign for more than a year but she and her team have plugged away for 11 years.
A flyover will bring economic and safety benefits to Angus and the Mearns.
A flyover was built close to Stracathro Hospital around 30 years ago following a similar campaign and the accident rate plummeted.
It was needed because of the huge number of accidents involving people, many of them elderly, crossing four lanes of a busy dual carriageway.
Robert Anderson. Kirkton, Arbroath.
What have they done with Alex?
Sir, – What ever happened to former First Minister Alex Salmond?
The only time we ever see him is in The Courier on a Monday.
Many would have expected to see this truly world-class politician make a serious impact on the big stage of Westminster.
He is, after all, the most experienced and talented of the SNP’s 56 MPs. Mr Salmond is able to give any MP or government minister a run for their money.
It seems, however, that Nicola Sturgeon is pulling the Westminster strings from her bunker at Holyrood.
Of course, she is SNP leader but you get the sense that any input from Salmond would not be welcome.
Salmond’s political heartland was the conservative north and east of Scotland.
Has the new, socialist, west-coast phalange in the SNP drowned out the pragmatic voices of old?
Bob Stark. Mill Street, Tillicoultry.
SNP aim is total control
Sir, – I know for certain there are many Scottish National Party members who are good people but it seems that there are also a large number within the organisation who are prepared to wage a continuing vendetta of vilification against their political opponents.
The 50% or so of voters in Scotland who do not support the SNP have genuine and well-founded fears of living in a one-party state, where to step out of line brings official retribution.
Alistair Carmichael should not have denied authorising the leak, though, incidentally no one knows exactly what First Minister Nicola Sturgeon actually said.
But he has already paid a penalty by not claiming a redundancy payment to which he was entitled.
More significantly, who among us has never denied doing something they have in fact done?
Certainly, many politicians have frequently denied doing things which it eventually became clear they had done.
The SNP seem not to be content with winning 95% of the Westminster seats with only 50% of the votes and are determined to gain total and unquestioned control, a frightening thought.
Anthony Garrett. 1 Royal Terrace, Falkland.
Jim Crumley can learn a lot
Sir, – May I compliment your columnist Jim Crumley on his forthcoming book, Nature’s Architect, which is about beavers (June 9).
Jim has written about his desire to bulldoze the much-loved Perth City Hall and replace it with a central square.
I am confident he will surely learn much about architecture if he keeps beavering away.
Vivian Linacre. 21 Marshall Place, Perth.
EU danger for nationalists
Sir, – The vote in the House of Commons this week on the matter of whether or not to hold a referendum on continuing EU membership was comprehensively positive.
Voting in a block to oppose the motion, however, was the entire Scottish National Party representation with the notable exception of one member who apparently took a wrong turning in the voting corridors and voted to support the motion.
The reports of the vote beg two obvious questions.
If the SNP felt it was valid to hold a referendum onindependence from the United Kingdom, why is it not valid to hold a referendum on the independence of the UK from the European Union?
Since the purpose of the House of Commons is to concern itself with the governance of the United Kingdom as a whole, while the purpose of Holyrood is to exercise devolved government in Scotland, why are weseeing SNP Members of Parliament behaving parochially as if they were MSPs obeying a Holyrood SNP whip?
They are, after allsupposed to be representing the views of their respective constituents.
There are more than a few Scottish voters who have concerns with the continuing growth of EU federalism and the inequality between so-called equal members of the EU.
An example of this is the increasing flow of economic migrants and asylum seekers to the UK when it is increasingly seen that we do not have the infrastructure to support such levels of migration and benefit payments.
On this basis, the SNP presence at Westminster will soon become as irrelevant as the Labour Party of old, led by Michael Foot, where ideology triumphed over voter realities and rendered the party unelectable for years.
Derek Farmer. Knightsward Farm, Anstruther.
Cameron can yet break union
Sir, – Well it has not taken long for the anti-European ultra-right wing of the Conservative Party to start rattling their sabres on the prospects of the planned referendum on the European Union membership.
Their latest justification is that: “we have a whole generation who have never had a say in our continued membership” of the EU.
Compare this to the experience of Scotland.
This country had to wait more than 300 years for a referendum on continued membership of the UK.
By contrast, the time gap between the last European referendum in 1975 and the proposed referendum in a year or so, is very small.
Maybe the slim Conservative majority will disappear very soon as the anti-Johnny Foreigner clique get into their stride and the infighting that they are famous for really gets going.
In fact, if England votes to pull out but Scotland votes to stay in, Cameron and his cronies may yet find that their legacy will be that they are the government that broke up the UK.
Ian Allan. 5 Marchside Court , Sauchie.
Just follow EU example
Sir, – Why bother to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, followed by a costly in/out referendum that will inevitably produce the wrong answer.
Just stay in, take the advantages and ignore what we don’t want to do, as the rest of the EU membership has always done.
Malcolm Parkin. 15 Gamekeepers Road, Kinnesswood. Kinross