Your letters to the Helensburgh Advertiser: June 4, 2020

To have your say on any topic of local interest, just email your thoughts to editorial@helensburghadvertiser.co.uk or get in touch with us via the Send Us Your News section of this website.

Please try and keep your contributions as brief and to-the-point as you can, and to provide us with your name and address.

We also require a daytime contact phone number in case we need to check any details at short notice, though this will not be published.

Happy writing!

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Maurice Corry MSP’s criticism of the Scottish Government’s handling of the easing of lockdown restrictions in last week’s Advertiser was way below the belt.

His main point seems to be why Scotland has eased the lockdown at a different time to England.

Does he realise that all the countries within the UK are at different levels in terms of when the virus peaked ­– and more importantly where the R rate is judged to sit within each country?

I was wondering who would be the first local politician to try and score points out of the lockdown, and goodness gracious, it’s a Tory who got elected through the back door under proportional representation – something he should be thanking the Scottish Government for.

Maybe Mr Corry would prefer to see beaches crowded shoulder to shoulder like those in the south of England? Maybe he would also prefer the arrogant approach taken by Dominic Cummings and the Conservative government.

The Scottish Government has not been perfect, but at least they are putting people’s lives first, before profit.

Maurice Corry knows the effect the lockdown has had locally, but because Scotland waits a bit longer with the easing, he sees this as incompetent: well, he is wrong.

Virus and reproduction levels are different all over the UK; it’s common sense that each part of the UK moves at a different speed.

George McCulloch (via helensburghadvertiser.co.uk)

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READ MORE: Your letters to the Helensburgh Advertiser: May 28, 2020

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Further to you publishing, in recent Eye on Millig columns, the record of the late James Weir of Cardross of the bombing of Cardross in the Second World War, the sharing of the story on Facebook occasioned comment from a Mary Chandler, of Mildura, Victoria, Australia, who was brought up in nearby Cardross, Victoria.

She had previously been in touch – finding us through our Kirkton House Hotel web site of yesteryear. She sought information about the Scottish Cardross, so that the pupils at the school there would know where their village name had originated.

We supplied photos of the village as it is today, and forwarded a copy of the History of Cardross (now, we understand, out of print).

Mary has kept in constant touch with us and your recent publication of events in the war prompted her to mention that she remembers her parents sending food parcels and knitwear to the wartime residents of Cardross.

It seems unreal that they were doing this during the height of the war, when communications were basic, difficult and expensive!

This comradeship and generosity (so missing today) from half-way around the world, was truly amazing.

We can only hope that these bonds, born of fortitude and a common cause, will return to the global stage as we come out of the current pandemic and start, free of the shackles of the navel-gazing European Union, to strike new free trade deals with not only our English speaking friends of old, but also our wider Commonwealth community, and indeed, the world - for the common good.

Stewart H. Macdonald, Kirkton House, Cardross

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READ MORE: Helensburgh Advertiser readers' letters: May 21, 2020

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I MUST comment on the beautiful poem by Rev Fred Booth in the Advertiser Comment section of May 28.

I did not realise who had written the poem until I finished reading it, but I found myself singing it to the beautiful song ‘Ellan Vannin’ which I learned many years ago, while at school in the 1950s.

My instinct was to phone my dear friend Fred, and we had a nice chat about his thoughts on writing these beautiful words, with which I fully concur.

The similarities in the words of Ellan Vannin echo the thoughts of this poem, and I wonder if anyone else found themselves singing this beautiful tune to Rev Fred’s words.

Well done Fred and now I will sign off singing this beautiful song. Thank you.

Mrs Elizabeth Street, Cairndhu Avenue, Helensburgh

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READ MORE: Your letters to the Advertiser: May 14, 2020

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The SNP government must step up their game on testing, with 70,000 tests being missed over two weeks.

Nicola Sturgeon can build as large a testing capacity as she likes but this is meaningless if people aren’t actually being tested. The Royal College of Nursing has warned that Scotland needs to match the extent of testing in the rest of the UK.

Thousands of care home residents, workers and their families are going untested, which is why we’re seeing such a crisis in these facilities. Testing is key to controlling this virus, the SNP need to sort it out.

Councillor Alastair Redman (Conservative, Kintyre and the Islands)

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READ MORE: Helensburgh Advertiser letters page: May 7, 2020

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THE reason why some care homes have become so badly affected by Covid-19 is in part because of the ageist society in which we live.

This means the care given to people from care homes is based solely on relieving an acute problem when admitted to hospital. As soon as that is dealt with the care home resident is discharged back to the care home.

There are two reasons for this: the average time a care home resident lives is about 14 months, and the NHS appears to believe it futile to extend further care in hospital to this group, including access to relevant rehabilitation, such as ongoing physiotherapy.

Care home residents are therefore expected to die in the care home so that stress is not put on the NHS.

When NHS staff discharged elderly patients back into care homes without testing them for Covid-19 they were following their normal protocol: not to block beds.

However, if care home residents were not viewed as a burden to the NHS then they would have been transferred from an acute ward to an NHS care of elderly unit and would have been monitored and looked after more carefully. They could then have been isolated for longer there and fewer deaths may have occurred.

There is also a problem with having some care homes as profit-making institutions. Costs will always impinge on the quality of care.

Early on, when the virus was becoming active, we saw children practising good handwashing techniques in schools, but I have yet to see this demonstrated with elderly residents in care homes.

Linda Loftus, via email

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READ MORE: Your letters to the Helensburgh Advertiser: April 30, 2020

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Volunteers are always important. But in these challenging times, when our communities need them most, they are invaluable.

I’m writing to tell you how proud I am of the Scout volunteers in Scotland. Together, they are helping tens of thousands of young people to gain skills for life - helping them speak up, play their part and find their place in the world.

To keep everyone safe, Scouts aren’t able to meet face to face. But this hasn’t stopped our volunteers from supporting young people.

So many of our brilliant leaders are still running meetings online, helping Scouts catch up with their friends and continue to earn their awards.

At a time when our children’s lives are so badly disrupted, these sessions are providing a sense of normality and continuity that’s so important for their well-being.

We have also been supporting families across Scotland and beyond with free resources at scouts.org.uk/the-great-indoors.

So I’d like to say a huge thank you to all our volunteers, whether you drive the minibus, make the drinks, look after the accounts or help deliver vital skills for life we couldn’t do it without you.

It’s your kindness and resilience in these tough times that really is so inspiring - and it really is making a difference.

Andrew Sharkey (Chief commissioner, Scouts Scotland)

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