Readers' letters - February 16

I have just read your report of the day the Lancashire Post nearly missed the 1938 FA Cup Final result (Retro February 8).

One additional anecdote from my family which goes with it.

My grandad went to the game, meeting his brother who was living in Luton while serving with the army.

They went together to the match and arranged to meet his sister-in-law in London after the game.

What they didn’t plan on was extra time and the only way to meet Florrie at the pre arranged time was to catch a certain train.

That meant leaving Wembley after 90 minutes.

My grandad and his brother were standing on the train station at Wembley as the train came in and at that moment they heard the roar of the winning goal but they had no idea who had scored it.

When getting off the train in central London they had to find a newspaper vendor to discover who won. Luckily that newspaper vendor knew the correct score.

As an aside my great, grandad started watching Preston North End as a cricket team pre-football and pre-Invincibles and so my children are fifth generation PNE fans.

He will have seen them win finals pre-Wembley but PNE 4 Swindon 0 in the play off final was the first time any Borwick has seen us win at Wembley.

We had seen us lose in 1954 and 1964 and 1994. We had seen us lose twice at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

Even when we did win at Wembley in 1938 William and Jack Borwick ‘missed the winning goal’ not sure he ever forgave his brother and sister-in-law.

At least my daughter Rebekah, son Liam and myself broke our duck when we won the play-offs.

Not sure any other PNE supportwers have been so unlucky!

Rev Keith Borwick

Garstang

politics

Workers’ rights are not a privilege

Councillor Alan Pearmain (‘Tory party suspends race row politician’,LP February 10) is quoted as saying “I am not a politician. I am just a guy with more money than sense.”

This is refreshing honesty from Coun Pearmain, and he provides an apt description of just about every Tory I have ever come across.

Another such is Norman Tomlinson (letters, February 10) who thinks that the five day week is “an outdated and outmoded privilege.”

Far from being a privilege the five day week is a right that was won after decades of struggle by working people who wanted their lives to be something more than wage slavery. If we lived in a rational and progressive economic system the working week would be getting shorter and wages would be rising. Increasing automation should be facilitating this but many working people, justifiably, see it as a threat to their jobs. This is evident from capitalism’s history of condemning large numbers of workers to a zero day week.

Indeed, your front page headline of February 10 says ‘Pharmacies face the axe’. Another example of Tories being rich and senseless.

John Prance

Penwortham

council

Blame brown big demise on Brexit

I got a letter yesterday from Chorley Council telling of a gap in their waste collection budget and the scrapping of garden waste collection.

Not all bad news as it is to be replaced by a fee from of May 1, 2017 of £30a year should I wish to sign up to the new continued garden waste collection service which works out apparently at circa £1.25 per collection.

I might have been tempted to sign up to the scheme were it not for the fact that in no time at all there’ll be news that the French transnational company (Veolia) Chorley Council employ to collect my garden waste has had to increase their collection charges as the foreign made trucks they use have gone up in price due to Brexit - so, upon reflection, I think it best to bag my garden waste and take it to the tip myself.

Joseph Dawson

Withnell, Chorley

health

Health service not safe with Tories

Our unelected Prime Minister should hang her head with shame at the way she is condoning the wrecking of the NHS by her hatchetman Jeremy Hunt.

It was significant that he kept his job as Health Secretary, even though a large section of the public detested him because of his mismanagement. It is a disgrace that one of the richest countries in the world will not provide adequate funding because the Tories are hell bent on running down the NHS to sell off to their cronies in private health care.

The Tories hate the NHS because it’s not their baby and they can’t get used to the fact a Labour government could create such a wonderful service – run for the people and not for vast profits.

Every time the Tories get into power, the NHS goes into crisis because of cuts, resulting in cancelled operations. My son has had his spinal operation cancelled three times because of cuts. I have for a long time held the belief that the Tories have had a secret agenda regarding the NHS.

Mr A E Owens

via email

planning

Referendum was a waste of cash

I predicted that the turnout for the Penwortham Town Council Plan Referendum would be 15 per cent and it was actually 15.27.

The total number of votes cast was 2,689, there being 2426 for acceptance of the plan and 258 against. Are referenda the flavour of the month? Is this the government’s idea of democracy? If so, councillors and MPs might just as well go home.

How much did it cost to carry out the Penwortham referendum? There were a number of polling stations and three people on duty at any one time and then, of course, votes had to be counted. How many hours went into preparing the plan and at what cost? Also I understand an independent assessor had to check it out, at what cost?

The report itself was padded out with very little substance ( not wishing to be rude, but a lot of it was waffle). Incidentally,what would have happened if the vote had gone the other way?

One thing which was notable by its almost complete absence was any reference to any plans for sporting activities in Penwortham and I note with concern a recent report that our local leisure centres may go by the board in favour of a centralised sports facility.

This would mean people travelling a long way ( if they have access to transport), jobs will be lost and future generations of council tax payers would be burdened with the capital cost of a centralised facility.

The funding would, no doubt, be by private funding initiative with profits going to some offshore company.

Am I alone in thinking that our leaders locally and nationally are losing the plot? Don’t get me going on Trump and his gang.

John Gaunt-Wilkinson

via email