Sir, – Much has been written and published on the subject of the flood that hit Alyth last summer.
It was obvious that the deluge that morning, combined with the amount of fallen trees and debris in Alyth Den, contributed greatly to the damaged inflicted on all the bridges.
Perth and Kinross Council undertook an immediate clean up of Alyth Burn throughout the entire den and this has, in my opinion, been successful in allowing excessive rainfall to move quicker through the den and Alyth itself.
However, fallen timber continues to gather in various parts of the den and will require to be removed on a regular basis.
To make matters worse, a tractor tyre was dumped in the den just before Christmas with not a thought for any walkers who may have been below.
Luckily the tyre came to a halt before it reached the water.
The incident has been reported to the police and Perth and Kinross Council.
Mr C. Norrie. 33 High Street, Alyth.
Never forget Holocaust
Sir, – Some of my Polish acquaintances find it strange that I have never visited Auschwitz when I have been in theircountry, although I have stayed in Krakow from where visits are arranged for tourists.
During the late 1950s, some Polish and Jewish pupils at the school for which I was working and who knew I spent most of the holidays in Yugoslavia, urged me to leave the train at Munich, see Dachau, and tell them about it next term.
After half an hour at Dachau, I could say I would never chose to be inside any similar museum.
An atmosphere of evil and death hung over it although it had been cleaned up long before.
But the huts in which the prisoners had lived and died were still there and inhabited by families with children.
I objected to a German official that families should be living in such an environment but I was told that these were all refugees from Poland and Czechoslovakia and Germany had nowhere else to put them.
I would not be tempted to see Auschwitz but I am sure that Michael Alexander’s article on the camp (January 28) tells us all we need to know about it.
It is importantthat such places bemaintained so that what happened there is not forgotten.
Robin Ball. 27 Morgan Street, Dundee.
Our thanks for loving care
Sir, – We were disturbed to read the article (January 23) concerning Glenhelenbank Care Home, Luncarty, and would like to convey our condolences to Laura Rennie’s family for their loss.
Our mother/mother-in-law, Margaret Cassidy, died at Glenhelenbank aged 94 on January 18.
She had been there for more than five years and we had spent many weeks visiting all the care homes in the area which catered for people with dementia.
We chose Glenhelnbank because of itshomely and caring atmosphere.
We have neverregretted our choice and were inspired by the care and real love shown to all the residents.
We were overwhelmed by the loving care shown to mum who had been nursed in bed for the last six months, turned every two hours and cream applied to her skin so that she never once experienced a bedsore. We will be forever grateful to the caring staff of Glenhelenbank for making our mother’s last five years comfortable and happy to the end.
Val Cassidy and family. Lochend, Sandbank, Dunoon.
Does creator have a rival?
Sir, – George McMillan (February 2) disbelieves the Big Bang “because something cannot emanate from nothing”.
How does he think a creator came to be? Did he /she/it create other planets?
If so, why is there no life on them? What about the other galaxies? Did they have the same, or another, creator?
There is sound evidence that 90% of the species ever on Earth are extinct and that four times there have been massive events which destroyed 80% ofanimals and plants.
The last was the 65million years ago when an asteroid landed.
If there was/is a creator, he/she/it was also a destroyer, or is there another more powerful being opposed to it?
Why create something and then destroy it?
The great majority of abortions are natural, not forced, so it cannot be assumed that an omnipotent being is opposed to such events.
Those who suffer them are often told that it was God’s will.
Why did this all-powerful being wait more than four billion years to create humans?
These were on the Earth for millions of years before the Hebrew deity was ever mentioned, so there is no cause to assume that he was the creator.
There were countless much earlier gods who might just as well have been.
There are hundreds of different creation stories. Why should we believe Mr McMillan’s is the true one?
Kevin Lawrie. 35 Queen Street, Edinburgh.
Scrap catch and release policy
Sir, – Dr David Summers is once again the master of the understatement (February 1) when he calls the methodology of the Scottish Government in working out how to categorise Scottish rivers on their sustainability of salmon numbers as “fairly dubious – it’s not very accurate”.
This is apparent from looking at each river’s catch returns over the last five years. There has been absolutely noother research whatsoever.
It is the usual back-of-a-fag-packet legislation we have come to expect from our MSPs.
There have been no facts gathered on the numbers of salmon that actually ascend all our rivers year on year to spawn, nor on the number of smolts from each spawning that descend the rivers to go to the feeding grounds.
There has beennothing on seal predation and nothing on bird predation on the salmon parr before they reach the smolt stage.
Instead we are given just the most unreliable statistics of all – catch returns.
It is also amazing that on the Tay system only the main river with its very high-priced private beats has been classified category one, while the tributaries are classed category three.
On the River Forthsystem only the River Teith with its high-priced private beats has class one status and the other tributaries and the main river have category three classing.
The best thing the Scottish Government could do is admit the lack of true scientific data on the true state of salmon numbers in all our rivers and abandon catch and release legislation until such time as the truth is known.
Ian Allan. 5 Marchside Court, Sauchie.
Cut back on travel by air
Sir, – At last someone has placed responsibility for action against climate change on us, thepeople, Scots urged to be superheroes (January 30).
The campaign to raise awareness of how we can reduce carbon emissions in our daily activities and so make life better for our grandchildren deserves our full support. May I just add that the most effectivemeasure we can all take is to avoid air travel whenever possible.
One transatlantic flight emits greenhouse gases equivalent to the average annual car use.
Antony Black. 79 Blackness Avenue, Dundee.
Democracy lacking in EU
Sir, – As part of an extended family which is a giant revolving door of economic migration, I feel great sympathy for today’s migrants butthe numbers at thegates of Europe are daunting.
Yet it was not insoluble and had rigorousmechanisms been putin place for assessment and resettlement as David Cameronsuggested, it could have been a European Union success story.
But the unilateralsuspension of its asylum rules by Angela Merkel, Europe’s defactoleader, produced atsunami with which poorer member states could not cope.
And the calamitous failure to set upsystematic ways ofhandling the influx created total chaos and established people smuggling as a new international crime to vie with narcotics.
Bureaucrats berate selected nations: Hungary for its fences, the United Kingdom rather than France for Calais and Denmark formeans-testing wealthy migrants demanding state support.
But governments must do what their electorates demand and the fact that this annoys the gravy-train shows just how malign and undemocratic an institution the European Union has become.
Rev Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.