Your letters...

Not such good service

Sir, — Is this one of the reasons the National Health Service is in such a critical state, where the left hand does not know what the right is doing?

Several weeks ago, I went to the Friday morning audiology clinic at Townlands Memorial Hospital in Henley to have the volume of my one hearing aid turned up.

As I had not needed to visit for the last three years, I was told that I should have a new hearing test to check for any deterioration, fully expecting the audiologist to book me in for one.

I was astonished to be told that I would have to book one at my doctor’s surgery.

This I did and had to wait a further two weeks for my new test.

Imagine my disbelief when arriving for the test to be told they could not do it for me as:

a) Their equipment was not good enough now and

b) Due to procedures, my doctor has to refer me back to the hospital and then somewhere in the dim and distant future I would receive a letter telling me where this test could be carried out and it would then be down to me to make a further appointment.

By this stage I had lost the plot completely.

Fortunately, I am retired but had I taken time off work then I would be even more annoyed than I am.

I know that many people locally have had a good experience at Townlands and sing its praises but my past experiences on two or three occasions have left a lot to be desired.

One wonders exactly what they do up there when so- called procedures get in the way of such a simple appointment.

It would be a good idea if Townlands or the Henley Standard were to publish exactly what clinics and treatments are available at the hospital without procedures getting in the way so that patients do not have their hopes raised only to be told they should have gone to the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading in the first place. — Yours faithfully,

David Palmer

Swiss Farm, Henley

So thankful for the NHS

Editor, — I’m sure many of your readers have known that awful feeling of panic when a member of their family needs hospital treatment fast.

I just dropped everything when my father, who has a pacemaker fitted, complained his heart wasn’t feeling right.

At Townlands Memorial Hospital a nurse advised me that he needed to go to the accident and emergency department at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.

She said Townlands could call an ambulance but the last one they’d called for that day had taken two hours to get there, so it would be quicker if I drove him myself but, if he became worse, I should stop and dial 999.

The Royal Berks A&E department was so busy, people were waiting in the outside porch.

Patients were being sent back into the waiting area, some with needles in their hands, I guess for intravenous drips, some holding sick bowls.

An exhausted triage nurse told me it was full and busy like this every day.

A doctor organised various tests to be carried out on my father. He was given one ECG in a storage room.

Another patient who sat waiting with us had his bloods taken by an apologetic nurse. People were lying on trolleys in the passageway.

Notices everywhere pictured a woman opening the front door to a police officer and read, “If you leave, let reception know, or we’ll worry about you.”

Another advised you that, unless told otherwise, you should eat and drink something.

We’d been there four hours before, thankfully, my father was allowed home. Some patients had been there longer but, like us, nobody complained, being just grateful to be there and to be treated and looked after by truly exceptional, dedicated people, from the doctors to the reception staff.

It’s not until you need the NHS that you realise how blessed we are to have it. — Yours faithfully,

JS

Henley

Poor deal for farmer

Sir, — If you were a highly respected and hardworking farmer in Shiplake would you like to have fields for your crops and animals that have a tendency to flood in the winter? No? I thought not.

Yet this is exactly what was proposed by the Phillimore Estate to Stephen Doble, of Shiplake Farm.

He and his family have been farming here for more than 100 years. The land is leased to them by the estate.

All was well until Shiplake College began to have bigger visions for their rugby games. The land upon which some of the rugby pitches sit, and which they have been using for more than 25 years, floods occasionally. Sometimes matches have to be cancelled.

The Phillimore Estate has made an offer to the college of 23 acres of land alongside the A4155. This will accommodate six more rugby pitches and will bring the total number to eight since there are already two useable pitches on high ground.

Just one problem exists — this is high grade land, farmed by Stephen Doble. (“Never mind,” they must have been the thinking. “Let them swap. Stephen can have the land that floods. Cows won’t mind swimming and he can grow rice instead of wheat.”)

When I first heard about it, I thought it was a joke but at a meeting of South Oxfordshire District Council’s planning committee on Wednesday last week, the application was passed.

Stephen obviously cannot farm successfully on land that floods and the farm will struggle to survive with a smaller acreage.

There will be a further loss of 15 acres because land has been marginalised.

Does this seem like a good planning decision to you? This is someone’s livelihood. I don’t think you will need to think very hard about it.

In a few years there may be no farm. The land in question currently produces enough wheat annually to make 140,000 loaves of bread but why worry about boring topics like food production?

Alternatively, it can produce enough morphine poppies for 26,000 doses of morphine for cancer patients but why worry about them?

There will be happy children and lots of matches on eight rugby pitches, plenty of (polluting) coaches bringing teams to compete at the school and lovely, tall goal posts to decorate what was the beautiful natural landscape, where once wildlife ran and birds sang.

Would someone please stop this madness? — Yours faithfully,

Vivien Pheasant

Shiplake

Unconsidered and unethical

Sir, — Like many other Shiplake residents, I am extremely concerned that planning permission has been given for six rugby pitches on the land currently farmed by Stephen Doble alongside the A4155.

Shiplake College already has rugby pitches. That they occasionally flood is something the school could address whereas Mr Doble is to lose 23 acres of prime productive land.

The land on which the present two pitches are sited is unsuitable for agriculture and yet it is proposed that this should be exchanged for his fertile fields in order to accommodate extra rugby pitches for the college. Relinquishing this land will have a devastating impact on this small family farm and for our local authority to grant permission is both unconsidered and unethical. — Yours faithfully,

Sue Jenkins

Mill Road, Lower Shiplake

Destroying countryside

Sir, — The application by Shiplake College to bulldoze 23 acres of beautiful Oxfordshire countryside is surprising for an institution with strong values and especially one that is a registered charity as this is anything but charitable to its neighbours and the environment in which it sits.

The view along the A4155 through the fields to Shiplake church is extremely special, so I am disappointed that South Oxfordshire District Council has granted the college permission to turn valuable farmland into sports pitches.

This view will be gone forever. Just because the college has been granted permission it does not mean it needs to use it.

Shiplake Parish Council voted unanimously against the proposal and more than 300 local residents signed a petition in opposition.

I hope the college makes the honourable choice and respects the voice of the community.

The current pitches happened to be flooded on the day of the councillors’ site visit but this was not a true representation of the situation as it is a very rare event.

The college stated in the planning committee meeting that it does not expect the current pitches to be playable until next Easter.

However, a week after the site visit, I have seen boys playing on the current pitches.

The college has submitted a drainage report which states that the current pitches can be drained to the desired standard. Why is it not going down this route but instead choosing to destroy the character of the village forever?

The only I reason I can presume is that it plans future development which would not be possible on the current site.

I have lived in Henley for nearly 40 years and it is totally heartbreaking to watch the gradual loss and destruction of our countryside and the large number or animals forced to find new homes and in the process being killed on our fast roads.

As a community, we are told we have a voice and yet I feel that voice is so often totally ignored. — Yours faithfully,

Laura Morley

Henley

Farmland lost for ever

Here we are, about to crash out of the EU at a time when as a country we need to be more self-sufficient in food and medicinal crops.

However, planning permission was granted last week for six enormous rugby pitches on good farmland tilled for four generations by the Doble family.

The land is owned by the Phillimore Estate and will be flattened and manicured before 24 rugby posts are erected for use by Shiplake College. Planning permission was granted against some of the better judgements of members of the South Oxfordshire District Council’s planning committee, who said they were fearful of losing yet another appeal.

Thanks must go to Lorraine Hillier and two other councillors who asked pertinent questions, revealing that both the Phillimore Estate and Shiplake College are making this change of use with scant regard for the impact on the farmer’s livelihood and going against the wishes of the vast majority of Shiplake residents, their neighbours. This is not democracy.

There desperately needs to be reform and tightening of the planning laws. Make no mistake, this is “development creep” and you can be sure that the land will never be returned to productive, arable farmland again. — Yours faithfully,

Marie Lawlor

Lashbrook Road, Lower Shiplake

Find better solution

Sir, — We are writing to protest at the nonsensical planning decision which will allow Shiplake Farm to lose good farming land to new rugby pitches for Shiplake College in exchange for land which floods and can’t be used for farm purposes.

Stephen Doble and his family have farmed this land for more than a century and deserve more support from their local community to ensure their efforts remain commercially viable.

There must be a better solution. We hope all involved will work together to find one. — Yours faithfully,

Bill and Rosemary Pitkeathley

Lashbrook Road, Lower Shiplake

Supremely ironic idea

Sir, — We fully endorse the opposition to Shiplake College’s new playing fields.

I would only like to add that it is supremely ironic for a school to push for the wasteful use of valuable farmland.

No doubt they have many lessons/conferences on ecology, saving the rainforest/the planet etc. The hypocrisy! — Yours faithfully,

Bob and Michele Preston

Manor Wood Gate, Shiplake

We need to have control

Sir, — The evidence suggests that South Oxfordshire District Council is not working in the best interests of the people of Henley.

The blame for the current shambolic state of parking in the town is down to the district council.

Its employees who devised the traffic flow in the King’s Road car park have probably never left their desks in Didcot to look at the situation on the ground.

Otherwise they would have realised how foolish it is to cause everyone to go the longest way to the most parking, through the most congested path. Or maybe they were on work experience from primary school.

The same officers are likely behind selling off huge areas of Henley’s parking and sub-letting much-needed spaces to the police and others.

To cap it all, every Tuesday up to Christmas, all commuters into town will be able to park in the centre free of charge. Shoppers won’t get a look in.

A market town like Henley thrives because it attracts people from the surrounding area. If we can’t park conveniently, we’ll go to towns where we can.

I am told that Henley’s district councillors have been tearing their hair out to get things changed but have been repeatedly told “there isn’t the money”.

Oh yeah — with income from Henley’s car parks netting the council well on the way to £1 million every year?

Local control of local facilities is the only answer. — Yours faithfully,

Dick Fletcher

Mill End, Hambleden

Austerity’s consequence

Sir, — With 20,000 fewer police than we had 10 years ago and apparently 40 per cent less spent on prison and other offender services, does anyone not know why terrorists and/or others who want to harm our society can slip through the system?

Austerity may have balanced the books but did it make us safe or produce a better society?

Doesn’t everyone know that to focus too much on accounting destroys the entity being measured? — Yours faithfully,

Dan Remenyi

Kidmore End

Best chance of change

Sir, — I have written before about the lack of opportunity for our recently enfranchised 18- to 20-year-olds to vote for their future in the Brexit referendum.

It is now important to carefully consider who should represent them and the rest of us going forward.

As you know, Henley voted 57 per cent in favour of remain in the EU but our MP, John Howell, ignored this completely and followed the Tory party line in supporting Brexit in all the post-referendum parliamentary votes.

This was duly noted at the South Oxfordshire local government elections when there was a strong rejection of the Conservative Party with the Liberal Democrats and others taking control.

Since our new local government team at the district council saw fit to question the draft Local Plan prepared by their Conservative-led predecessors, the Government has overidden local democracy by calling in the revised draft document such that it cannot go forward for approval.

This is Tory democracy at work. It is okay when it follows the party line but not when the people vote against it. Our democracy is in danger of becoming authoritarian.

Mr Howell should be justly rewarded for his and his party’s wishes to override local democracy by voting against him at the forthcoming election.

It is a great pity that the other three parties have not stood together and agreed on an anti-Tory/anti-Brexit candidate who, if united, could bring about a change in Henley.

As it stands, the best chance of change would appear to be a vote for Laura Coyle, the Liberal Democrat candidate, following her party’s success in the local government elections. — Yours faithfully,

Alastair Morris

Kennylands Road, Sonning Common

Listen to Heseltine

Editor, — While the constituency of Henley has been a safe Conservative seat for more than 100 years, the MPs who have represented us could not have been more different.

Few constituents have warm and affectionate memories of the incumbent John Howell actively campaigning for their corner, while focus groups almost universally regard his predecessor Boris Johnson at best as a likeable buffoon who lied to the Queen.

Indeed, it was this illegal attempt to prorogue Parliament that prompted me and others to establish the People’s Vote Goring Gap Group in September.

Campaigning for a People’s Vote after a final Brexit deal is agreed by Parliament has been endorsed by many leading politicians, including Lord Heseltine, Henley’s MP before Mr Johnson.

As such, I was struck to hear him say in a conference call with other People’s Vote local leaders on Monday that the overarching principle now to stop Brexit was to put loyalty to country over and above party loyalty.

He then recommended that the only alternative to the current Conservatives was to vote Liberal Democrat.

When I asked him what he would advise constituents in his former Henley constituency, he replied: “I have many fond memories of Henley and my advice would remain the same, to vote Lib-Dem.”

As such, many may think that his advice to vote for the local Liberal Democrat candidate Laura Coyle would represent a refreshing change for the better, not just for Henley but for the country. — Yours faithfully,

Rob Jones

Co-founder of People’s Vote Goring Gap, Manor Road, Goring

I don’t trust Johnson

The Conservative manifesto contains proposals to establish a democracy and rights commission.

The Independent has said that if established, it will be “a sign of things to come — an elected dictator who will scrap our democracy”.

How might it do this? By stopping Parliament and the courts holding the Prime Minister to account, by making judges political and, perhaps, by taking the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights. That could be your rights being taken away. Boris Johnson’s Government broke the law by suspending Parliament for several weeks.

He has also not released a report into possible Russian interference in our democratic processes.

Do you trust him with the future of our democracy? I don’t. — Yours faithfully,

Robert Thompson

Henley

Lib-Dem has values

Sir, — Lord Heseltine, One Nation Conservative grandee and MP for Henley from 1974 to 2001, has recommended that we all vote Liberal Democrat in this general election, so I ask us all to follow his sage advice.

Let’s not send a badger to Westminster, as suggested by Simon Brickhill (Standard, November 22) but Lib-Dem Laura Coyle, who actually represents the values of this great constituency. — Yours faithfully,

Richard Sarsfield-Hall

Grange Close, Goring

Some cold statistics

Sir, — With all the hot air generated by the election, let’s consider some cold statistics:

The richest country in the world is Switzerland, worth $368,000 per capita. As it is not in the EU, life outside that club must surely be possible. The UK lies some way down the list at $170,000.

A prime aim of the EU is to transfer wealth from rich countries to poor, so the UK is a big net contributor. Why Luxembourg, at $191,000 and therefore wealthier than us, is a net recipient of EU funds, is a mystery.

Net gainers from our largesse have been countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece, which now have better motorways than us because we’ve been paying for theirs. Jeremy Clarkson did a hilarious skit on this.

To satisfy a whim of the French, every month the European Parliament moves from Brussels to Strasbourg for just four days’ work. This totally useless operation costs 14 million euros per annum. Each MEP costs us £2.3 million.

There have been numerous allegations of EU fraud. In 2015 the auditors were unable to account for 4.7 per cent of the budget, making this a black hole of 6.97 billion euros. — Yours faithfully,

Rolf Richardson

Wootton Road, Henley

Blissful ignorance

Editor, — I write in response to the recent letters from Philip M M Collings.

Well, for the record, Mr Collings, and as a matter of fact, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases once again reached new highs last year (source: World Meteorological Organisation). Undoubtedly the same will be the case this year and likely well beyond 2020.

It’s a shame that you don’t spend more of your time researching the impact climate change is already having on our planet rather than writing your frequent and usually ill-informed narratives to the Henley Standard.

And so, Mr Collings, you go ahead and turn up the thermostat, throw another log on the fire, travel an extra mile in your car and eat as much red meat as you can in your blissful and convenient belief that it will make not one jot of difference to the plight that we all face.

And you can also continue to irresponsibly believe that our salvation ests solely in the hands of the world’s industrial base.

Thankfully, many millions of others across the world, including qualified scientists, Extinction Rebellion and an inspirational teenage climate activist from Sweden, would rather do all they can to make a positive contribution to fighting man-made climate change and highlighting the likely catastrophic consequences to us all — shudder at the thought that their actions may be frightening some people! — Yours faithfully,

Ashley Ford

Henley

Understand the facts

Sir, — In my letter of November 1, I criticised Extinction Rebellion and offered three incontrovertible facts plus some opinions about the so-called “climate emergency”.

Vic Moore responded by suggesting that I might be delusional but offering no other facts.

In order to address his clearly limited comprehension, I wrote a shorter exposition of the bare facts that you kindly published on November 22 alongside a considered letter from Rosemary Geake which politely criticised some of my earlier letter.

She suggested that fossil fuels will eventually run out, which is true only when looking at least 150 years hence.

She also suggested that third world economic development is not related to climate change.

That might be true were it not for the spread of the internet/social media into every corner of the world, incidentally now producing more CO2 than the airline industry.

People everywhere can now see every day the gulf between their living conditions and ours and are visibly seeking to improve themselves either by forcing political change or migration.

Their demands for improvement are already driving investment in reliable 24/7 electricity supplies which must include CO2-producing coal/oil/gas in the medium term at least.

An updated forecast published a few days ago is that Africa’s population is heading for four billion, almost all of whom will be envious of us, so I underestimated the push from there.

Last week you printed a full-on attack from Tim Dickson suggesting that I am an attention-seeking, Wikipedia-dependent pub bore rather than someone who was very environmentally concerned even before I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when it was published in 1962. It is a concern that I have followed and studied ever since.

Sadly, I suspect that Mr Dickson has not actually studied “Net zero — the UK’s contribution to stopping global warming” published by the Committee on Climate Change in May in any depth.

From those 276 pages and many other sources, I and many others have derived our worrying prognoses of the effects of “zero carbon by 2050”.

For example, among the mass of proposed changes to our way of life mandated in chapter 5, there is the statement: “Stop the installation of gas heating in new homes from 2025”. If effected, this one requirement means that in the next very few years housebuilders are going to have work out how to design natural gas out of new homes unless, of course, the Government ensures that before then there will be new hydrogen manufacturing plants, with their huge electrical needs, plus a whole new national pipework infrastructure to deliver hydrogen to every home plus a new generation of safety approved hydrogen fuelled gas boilers.

Fat chance, especially as I can see nothing in the committee’s report to suggest that it has consulted insurance companies to see how they would view pumping a highly explosive new gas into new homes or blocks of flats.

Then it will probably take more than five years for our planning and safety authorities to agree on rules around this new fuel in homes so bang goes that idea, among many others.

I predict that within four years our Government (of whatever flavour) will be working out how to backtrack on 2050. Perhaps they will be helped by the occurrence of one of the long overdue major volcanic eruptions (think Krakatoa or Tambora) that will drop temperatures by two or three degrees for a couple of years. Otherwise...?

Just to complete the picture, I actually place climate change fourth in my priorities for humanity after:

1. Ending the real and stoppable (with political will) scourge of worldwide plastic pollution of seas and rivers, the urgency of which is clear and indubitable — a real emergency.

2. Providing clean water, sanitation and electricity to the three billion or more people who have no clean water and must defecate in the open.

3. Addressing period poverty across the world, which is denying half the population the education and dignity they need to escape poverty.

Numbers 2 and 3, apart from meeting basic human needs, will have the added merit of triggering a rapid population decline as it has been shown many times that a healthy, educated and aspirant female population quickly drives down the birth rate and hence the population growth.

Regarding the “climate emergency”, the various dictionary definitions of emergency all include the words “happens suddenly or unexpectedly and requiring immediate action...”. Something that has been brewing up for decades can hardly be described as sudden or unexpected and I would suggest that considered steady action across the board is preferable to the current political- and media-induced posturing.

I sincerely hope that Mr Dickson’s 11-year-old child will be taught how to find and understand real facts and, much more importantly, to learn to debate matters calmly and without resorting to ad hominem insults and abuse.

On the evidence presented, I suspect that this will be too much to hope for. — Yours faithfully,

Philip M M Collings

Peppard Common

Bigger than the town

Sir, — In complaining last week about the general election candidates who do not live in Henley (Standard, November 29), John Williams is evidently unaware that the so-called Henley constituency is somewhat larger than the town.

In fact, Henley is nestled down in the bottom right corner of a constituency that extends up to Thame, across to the outskirts of Oxford and bounded to the west by the River Thames. — Yours faithfully,

Ken Stevens

Red House Drive, Sonning Common

Ignorant or parochial

Editor, — John Williams’s letter bemoaning the fact that none of the candidates for the general election actually lives in Henley suggests either ignorance or a parochial view of our constituency.

The electorate of Henley constituency was 73,851 in 2010. The population of Henley-on-Thames was 11,619 in 2011, less than 16 per cent. — Yours faithfully,

Martin Wise

Goring Heath

I live in the constituency

Sir, — John Williams writes that I live “outside Henley” and assumes this means I live outside the constituency.

I live just outside Henley, in Rotherfield Greys, well inside the parliamentary constituency of Henley.

I am a South Oxfordshire district councillor and proudly represent the parishes within the Woodcote and Rotherfield ward. — Yours faithfully,

Jo Robb

Green Party parliamentary candidate for Henley

Wider bridge required

Sir, — I was pleased to read positive news about the re-introduction of the footbridge at Long Water, Fawley Court, as so coincidentally illustrated in the photo by Jim Donahue “of a partially hidden Fawley Court” (Standard, November 29).

Mr Donahue’s “secret” photo had to be taken at a date prior to the collapse of the footbridge in October last year.

At that time the footbridge was for walkers in single file, being so constrained that there was no allowance even for a large dog, such as a great dane or Bernese mountain dog, nor fully-equipped walkers, such as those undertaking a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award challenge, nor families or those with pushchairs/wheelchairs.

My understanding is that the Government encourages councils to improve access to public footpaths for all ages and abilities, hence Buckinghamshire County Council, as the agent responsible for the Long Water footbridge, wants to introduce a wider bridge, albeit twice the width of the previous footbridge.

A like-for-like replacement is not acceptable on the grounds of access for all.

Anyway, if it’s like-for-like, does that mean it would collapse within a few years too? — Yours faithfully,

Rupert Molloy

York Road, Henley

Good news for walkers

Sir, — Thank you for your uplifting front page story in last week’s Henley Standard.

It didn’t surprise me to read of the very generous offer from the Fawley Court estate to replace the broken footbridge to allow walkers to once again enjoy this footpath.

The owner of Fawley Court has always been very community minded, inviting members of the public to enjoy the house and grounds, whilse raising many thousands for good causes in and around Henley.

I had been saddened to read unwarranted personal attacks against the owner, when the footbridge is purely a Buckinghamshire County Council responsibility which it has now confirmed and intends to action. — Yours faithfully,

Lorraine Hillier

Reading Road, Henley

Now who’s embarrassed?

Sir, — I would suggest Keven Bentley must have met his high levels of arrogance with a similar level of embarrassment when he picked up last week’s Henley Standard to see the front page reporting the imminent reinstallation of the Fawley Court public bridge.

Only then would he have seen his highly patronising letter criticising the protest published in the same paper.

He wrote: “It is shameful that a small number of people can embarrass the Henley community at large”, which came across almost Trump-like in its absurdity with a total lack of understanding of the situation, while an absolute insult to the wider community.

As the organiser of the Fawley Court footbridge protest walk, I can say that the general consensus of all involved (protesters, ramblers groups, the Open Spaces Society), is that the move by Fawley Court to reinstate the public footbridge before Christmas would be most welcome.

However, we are over a year down the line of this debacle, so we will all be watching to see if it comes to fruition. — Yours faithfully,

James Lambert

Mill End, Hambleden

Henley in Gloom...

Sir, — I regret to say that unless there’s a change we can no longer be called “Henley in Bloom”.

When I came here, house hunting, a year-and-a-half ago, Henley was winningly bedecked with a fine array of bonny, colourful flowers. These gave the welcoming, cared-about feeling of a place where one wanted to live.

Then, this year, it changed. Gone was that debonair feeling. The previous cheerful flowers were swept away and substituted by the dreariest of vegetation stuffed into the baskets and containers around our streets; colourless and tired and bedraggled and really not enlivened by a topping of acid-green, stiff miniature fir trees, nor by the very occasional orange pansy.

It has been a disappointment. Henley has begun to feel forlorn and unloved.

Please can we have a return to the charming flowery scene we had before? Otherwise, I fear we shall indeed become known as “Henley in Gloom”. — Yours faithfully,

Rosemary Glaisyer

Greys Hill, Henley

Give others party too

If Soha is paying for 40 older residents of the Gainsborough estate and The Close in Henley why doesn’t it sponsor residents from Mount View and the Abrahams, Wootton Manor and Waterman’s estates on other days? — Yours faithfully,

Councillor Ian Clark

Henley Town Council, Cromwell Road, Henley

Leave off kids’ panto

Editor, — With utter disgust, many people will have read again that the chairman of the Kenton Theatre cannot respond to this mounting criticism. The storm simply gets worse and worse every week.

Without giving any reasons, the Kenton has been gunning for the Children’s Theatre over several years and this cannot go on.

The tireless Hursts have always paid a sensible rent but the rent hike now being demanded, the sharing of performance days and the proposed move to a February slot are nothing short of scandalous.

The Kenton has apparently developed an “attitude” to local children and no longer wants them, but these children and their parents are the core of the theatre’s past, present and future patronage.

The Kenton is losing its sense of purpose. This really matters to us all. Our local theatre is walking out. The Hurst family are committed and cannot walk out.

The chairman is not committed to anything and can leave at any time. The Henley Children’s Theatre cannot do that.

We, those who have enjoyed Muffin Hurst’s productions year after year, are not going to stand for this farce any more. We feel that Muffin’s decency has been seriously exploited.

The Kenton Theatre can relent when they remember their friends.

The Hurst family are a national asset. Back off, Kenton trustees. Christmas without the Hursts’ traditional local pantomime is just not Christmas. — Yours faithfully,

Christopher Leeming

Matson Drive, Remenham

Fine wasn’t newsworthy

Sir, — I assume that you must have been struggling to find stories to fill the last edition of your newspaper and that you also have no consideration of the impact that your reporting may have on members of the public.

Is it really in any of your readers’ interest to be told of an 83-year old-man caught and fined for travelling 5mph above the speed limit in Oxford?

I hope that this man, who was named within the article, doesn’t read your newspaper.

Please note that I do not know this man, who happens to live in the same village as me.

I recommend that you take more time to read the national newspapers so that you may then be able to understand the magnitude of what is happening in the wider area and perhaps also help you understand the meaning of “newsworthy”. — Yours faithfully,

Adam Coleman

Birchen Close, Woodcote

Steer clear of doctrine

Sir, — In his Thought for the week (Standard, November 29), the Rev John R M Cook makes clear that those of us who have not “turned to Christ” before the “certainty” of his second coming will face the “implications for eternity”. This warning and veiled threat are based upon whether or not we believe what is said about Jesus in various writings, themselves based upon oral traditions from about 1,900 years ago.

Scepticism and indifference are hardly surprising.

However, Mr Cook is clearly happy to accept the moral rightness of the divine arrangements for eternity, which seem to include a very uncomfortable afterlife for non-believers.

Thankfully, he is from a tiny minority of Anglican clergy who still hold this belief.

The Archbishop of Canterbury would almost certainly not take the view that the vast majority of Henley residents, for example, are on the road to perdition of some sort.

Otherwise he would be making this his main message to us all.

It is relevant to note that, apart from Mr Cook, Christian contributors to Thought for the Week avoid this doctrinal area altogether. They are right-thinking enough to do so. — Yours faithfully,

Douglas Kedge

Lea Road, Sonning Common

Imaginative initiative

Sir, — Our library is running an imaginative initiative.

A stand of books, beautifully wrapped in newspaper and string with only the genre as a clue to the content. A great encouragement to try something different.

I’m thoroughly enjoying my first lucky dip. — Yours faithfully,

Hilary Beck-Burridge

Fawley

Thank you for support

Sir, — I am writing to pay tribute to Jill Richardson and the cast of Jeux d’Esprit whose recent light and sound performances at King’s Arms Barn brought to life the love story of William and Dorothy Wordsworth in an elegant and original fashion.

These performances were given free and the audience invited to make donations to the Chiltern Centre.

As a result £1,500 was collected and since it began Jeux d’Esprit has raised nearly £6,000 for the charity.

This has proved a challenging year for the Chiltern Centre as we were required to transition from Ofsted to Care Quality Commission regulation.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the local community for the amazing support we continue to receive (the recent Aliquando concert being another example).

This is not only very much appreciated but does provide us with the ability to continue to respond to the ever-increasing demand for our service provision of short stay overnight and day care for young adults with learning disabilities whose parents and carers benefit from the much-needed break from the full-time care they provide.

All of us at the Chiltern Centre wish to convey to all our Friends and supporters our thanks for your continuing support. — Yours faithfully,

Paul Barrett

Chairman of trustees, the Chiltern Centre, Henley

Wonderful contribution

Grateful thanks to everyone in the villages of Shiplake, Binfield Heath, Dunsden and Playhatch who so generously gave to the Poppy Appeal this year.

The final total banked was £5,590, which is a wonderful amount from such a small area.

Many thanks to the door-to-door collectors who went out in all weathers from house to house. We couldn’t do it without you. — Yours faithfully,

Rosemary Jones

Hon. Poppy Appeal Organiser, Shiplake and Dunsden branch, Royal British Legion