Letters: Shame on the politicians who have let the Armed Forces deteriorate
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SIR – In 1976, aged 16, I joined the Army as a junior leader, after failing the initial medical, as I was underweight and too short, at 97lb and 4ft 11in (“‘Hollowed out’ forces not ready to fight Russia”, report, February 3). The recruiting sergeant told me to come back in three months, which I did, with several coins in my pocket for the weigh-in.
I went on to serve for 35 years in many theatres and with a variety of units before retiring as a major.
My son, who is 6ft 2in, weighs 160lb and rows regularly, wanted to follow in my footsteps. Sadly, he was rejected because he had suffered from asthma (as I had as a lad) over the five years before he applied. He never even got to speak to a serving or retired officer.
With hindsight, I am pleased he chose another career, as governments of all colours have simply drained the lifeblood out of the Army over the past 40 years. Those involved should be ashamed.
Maj Nick Solomon (retd)
Bodmin, Cornwall
SIR – My son spent two years going through the Army recruitment process, which involved two lengthy but successful health appeals. However, due to his dyslexia, he was unable to pass the Army Cognitive Test. No one could fault his determination. He passed every other aspect of the recruitment process and was deemed to be a very good candidate by the senior recruiter.
Before applying, he spent a year at college completing a BTEC level two in Armed Forces preparation. This is viewed as equivalent to basic training and involved training with the Rifle Regiment and others. This qualification isn’t even looked at or taken into account in the recruitment process, which is managed by Capita. He gave up, demoralised and defeated.
I worked as a lecturer in nursing with the Open University, where the entry requirements to study for a bachelor of science degree in nursing were GCSE grade Cs in English and maths or equivalent, and experience as a healthcare support worker. There was no cognitive test for them – and we produced excellent nurses.
How many other potentially good recruits has the Army lost?
Karen Lear
Blandford Forum, Dorset
SIR – Outsourced military recruitment is a farce. These companies don’t have the foggiest. The Chief of the Defence Staff must go back to soldiers recruiting soldiers.
Drop the woke nonsense. You have a country to defend, not a nation to appease.
Mike Scott-Hayward
Kemback Bridge, Fife
SIR – The gargantuan sums being squandered on net zero – and having a negligible effect on the world’s climate – need diverting with urgency into defence spending, before we find ourselves in a conflict emergency.
Jonathan Carr
Shrewsbury
Bank branch closures
SIR – Closing accounts is only one way to debank people (Letters, January 31). Shutting branches is far more effective. Our branch is about to close, meaning a long journey will be required to get to the nearest one.
I’m old and deaf, and rely on the boys and girls in the branch to help me maintain independence. Perhaps if all those of us affected withdrew our cash on the same day, the overmighty banks might listen.
Sue Hood
Ardersier, Nairnshire
SIR – I am forced to take a 30-mile round trip to deal with my nearest Nationwide Building Society. On top of my fuel costs, I will also have to pay for parking – and no doubt some sort of low-emissions-zone fee soon. All for the privilege of paying in cash.
A simple solution would be for banks and building societies to be forced to ensure that banking services are available at all post offices, especially in rural locations. This should be financed by the banking sector. Surely a win-win for customers and rural post offices.
Warren Stocks
Aberdeen
SIR – In my town, Barclays, NatWest, Santander, HSBC and Lloyds will be opening a banking hub five days a week from 9am to 5pm, with each bank taking one day.
Richard Morris
Lutterworth, Leicestershire
SIR – I am the treasurer of a local charity established to protect and enhance the local common.
Over seven months, I have received eight letters from Barclays warning me of restrictions in place on our account and stating that if it didn’t hear back from me in the next 10 days, it may give notice to close the account. This despite my completing the required forms on two occasions, telephoning three times and being promised the necessary updates had been completed.
Clearly, senior managers at Barclays have issued orders to staff to apply this policy with vigour and little common sense. Alternatively, the administration department is so incompetent that one branch does not know what the other is doing.
Tudor Davies
Keston, Kent
Shooing shame
SIR – Before my daughter started school, we found a stray cat under one of the beds. It was getting a bit aggressive, so I hooked it out with my foot and shooed it down the stairs.
Later that day, we saw the cat in the road and my daughter shouted with glee: “Look, mum, there’s that cat you were kicking” (Letters, February 3).
Jan Denbury
Winsley, Wiltshire
SIR – John Franklin’s letter (February 3) reminded me of an unforgettable moment on a family visit to Dublin, when our young son, offered lemonade or an orange drink in a restaurant, responded emphatically: “Actually, I’d like a gin and tonic, please.”
We didn’t even drink gin, and were both amused and intrigued.
Susannah Kelly
London SW1
SIR – I remember waiting at a supermarket checkout and hearing a young child say quite audibly to their mother, who was having her purchases scanned, which must have included a tin of sardines: “Mummy, can I have a whole sardine for tea?” I did not hear a response, but the consternation on the mother’s face said it all.
Donald Galt
Banbury, Oxfordshire
Asylum failures
SIR – Your Leading Article (February 3) is right to say that the biggest failure of the asylum system is the long delays that leave men, women and children in limbo for months and years – at great expense to the taxpayer. It is chaotic and causes immense human misery.
The Government’s solution – the Illegal Migration Act and the Rwanda Bill – is only going to make it worse. It is already resulting in tens of thousands being stuck indefinitely with nowhere to go. Rwanda will never have the capacity for them, nor should it. Some are already avoiding contact with vital services and face being exploited and abused.
The Government needs to ensure that the claims of anyone seeking asylum are decided fairly and efficiently on UK soil, instead of pushing ahead with new laws that close down the asylum system. It risks simply creating another costly mess.
Enver Solomon
CEO, Refugee Council
London E15
Preserve the pips
SIR – In the 1970s I worked as a freelancer in BBC local radio, where we were under strict instructions not to “crash the pips”, which were available on a fader every 15 minutes (“Time could be running out for Radio 4’s pips because of digital broadcasting delay”, report, February 3).
I became adept at talking up to the pips, declaring, “This is BBC Radio Carlisle, the sound of Cumbria,” giving the time and announcing the newsreader, but some staff never got the hang of it and would fade music just in time, or indeed sometimes not.
After 100 years, this is a national tradition that should be preserved, despite the problem of digital delay, as we have already lost too many of these.
Patrick Tracey
Carlisle, Cumbria
Travelling milk
SIR – Saturday’s milk bottle had travelled from Ormskirk to Peterborough (Letters, February 3). Possibly working its way through the alphabet?
Anne Brosnan
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
SIR – As a child in Sheffield in the 1950s, I well remember a milk bottle appearing stamped “Lone Star Dairy, Texas”. This was such a curiosity that for years we kept the empty bottle in the corner of a shelf in the pantry.
John D Hill
Barnsley, South Yorkshire
A second try at becoming a better tap-dancer
SIR – I was most encouraged to read that the Queen may take up tap-dancing (report, February 3).
Also 76, I have just found a tap-dancing class to join – 31 years after my entry for the bronze-medal exam, which I was unable to attend when the date was changed.
I am sure the Queen will be able to enjoy the kind of one-to-one tuition that I benefited from the first time round, and also target an attempt at the bronze medal, which I hope to crack this time.
Malcolm Watson
Ryde, Isle of Wight
American filmmakers’ belittling of Britain
SIR – Philip Wiggs correctly highlights the tendency of American filmmakers to belittle Britain’s Armed Forces and those of our Commonwealth allies (“How Masters of the Air gets the RAF wrong”, Letters, February 2).
This also stretches to incorporating American servicemen into incidents in which they never actually took part, such as the Great Escape.
The first US Army Air Force bombing raid over Germany took place on August 17 1942. By that time, bomber crews from the Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, South African Air Force and Royal Air Force had been engaged in bombing operations against Germany and its allies for almost three years.
The USAAF initially refused to listen to advice from Commonwealth senior officers in Bomber Command that daylight raids without effective fighter escort would result in high casualties and limited success – as the Luftwaffe had discovered in the Battle of Britain. Bomber Command’s crews, drawn from all over the Commonwealth, were the real masters of the air.
We need a Commonwealth filmmaker to produce some historically accurate films about the Second World War – and set the record straight.
Jimmy James
Wellingborough, Northamptonshire
SIR – It was Hitler who declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbour in 1941, more than two years after the war started – not the reverse. This is despite many American ships being sunk during those years.
When we were fighting the Nazis alone, the US sold us 50 rusty old ships at a high price, which included giving them most of our South American mining rights. We only finished paying our US war debts in 2006. There should be no surprise today that benefits are granted to the UK only when they are in the US’s own interest, as exemplified by Hollywood and, more importantly, by President Obama’s comment that we would be sent “to the back of the queue” for a post-Brexit trade deal.
Dr Peter Sander
Hythe, Kent
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