Readers' letters - April 12

I am an oddity as a football fan. I don’t crave the excesses of the over-hyped Premier League, I don’t want my club to spend money they haven’t got and I hope our current owner lives forever and stays in charge just as long – thanks Mr Hemmings.

But even so, may I offer up this open letters of thanks to Simon Grayson and the entire PNE squad for this season, one I’m sure regular viewers will concur, I want never to end!

In the modern era, you could argue our best teams were assembled to see out the 70s under Nobby Stiles or to commence the new Millennium under David Moyes and, as much as I loved both those sides, I would argue that they competed, if only slightly, on a more even playing field.

By all accounts, PNE 2017 operates on the third lowest budget in the division and, if you adhere to the hogwash about ‘spend to succeed’, the performances at Deepdale this season have been truly astonishing.

Remember, these people represent businesses that want you to believe that your club cannot compete without the money they give to you.

The Aston Villa masses present in the Bill Shankly end in the October sunshine recognised this.

Their club had spent more than £70m this season yet the two players they felt compelled to offer a standing ovation to were the outstanding talents they had chosen to ‘give us’ – Callum Robinson and Daniel Johnson.

Aston Villa meanwhile, so the same pundits tell us, will have to ‘rebuild’ this summer! They’re welcome to it.

I’m proud of PNE in every game they play but the feelings they’ve inspired in me this season have been unique and this passion has been evident amongst the players on the pitch.

To the 10,000 ‘fans’ we would undoubtedly acquire if we went up – shame on you. If you can’t find a pride or motivation in the performances of this team, in these circumstances, you haven’t got a football pulse.

So thanks again lads from Block D of the Sir Tom Finney.

I wanted nothing more than fourth bottom this season but, from where I’m sitting, you’ve a case for being the best North End side in a half century, the modern era or since Sir Tom retired.

Alan True

Blackburn

transport

No bus service

for three days

A few months ago, Preston Bus made some changes on timetables and local bus routes.

My problem is the timetable on the N.o. 14 bus, Longsands, which runs into Holme Slack. It’s a very popular route for the Deepdale Retail Park.

When these changes came into force, the Sunday bus service was stopped altogether.

On Bank Holidays, all other local bus routes run using a Sunday service timetable.

As there is no Longsands bus on a Sunday, no buses run on this route on Bank Holidays.

After contacting Preston Bus at the station and depot, I was told the Longsands bus would not be running on Good Friday. It is normal service on Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday, there is no bus as usual, and no bus on Easter Monday.

This leaves the regular bus travellers on this route without public transport for three days.

Whoever is in control of Preston Bus and is responsible for these timetables should take a closer look at the timetable on the Longsands route, as not everybody has a car.

All I can say is bring back Zippy. Older bus users will remember these buses.

Grandma

Holme Slack

food

I’m so fed up of conflicting advice

A leading author of a study from a Czech Republic university supposedly discovered that baked potatoes put us at risk of coronary heart disease. This comes years after choosing them as the healthier option.

We are told that traditional heart disease risk foods are based on ‘flawed data’.

Experts then go on to explain that cheese and dairy products are good for us but we should keep off potatoes, wheat, cereals and rice – food we’ve been consuming for centuries. We are constantly told one thing about certain foods then years later so-called experts state what we’ve believed to be correct is actually wrong.

Only recently, another expert reported that we don’t consume enough salt and by lowering quantities we’re not getting enough!

So what’s next, smoking is a protective factor against heart disease? Or eat as much food containing saturated fat as we can because it doesn’t harm us after all?

We must surely come to the conclusion that this so-called expert advice on foods is piffle!

Clifford Chambers

Address supplied

seasonal

It’s Easter day not egg or bunny day

The shelves of shops and supermarkets have been groaning under the weight of chocolate eggs and boxes as retailers prepare for the Easter rush.

What is interesting is that any reference to Easter itself is absent, so although you are able to buy chocolate in the form of an egg or a bunny, the Easter egg along with the Easter bunny are no more.

One can only assume they have been banished by politically correct marketing gurus, who perhaps feel that any reference to Easter could have an adverse influence on sales to people of other faiths than Christianity.

Is it not a little ironic as well, that two of the main producers are famous for their Quaker origins?

Puzzling and, at the same time, not a little disconcerting!

Full marks to Booths in Longridge whose signage welcomes Easter shoppers and refers, quite rightly, to the fact that Easter eggs are on sale.

Gordon Garment

Chipping

language

An iconic hub

for fracking?

It is remarkable how words go in and out of fashion.

‘Iconic’ is used in the Press so frequently at present that some of the things described as iconic cannot, by definition, be so.

Another much-used word, with a strange sense of always being good, is ‘hub’.

It is being applied to almost anything.

I even read that Preston Railway Station is a cycle hub!

I sometimes wonder if the Preston New Road site was called the fracking hub, whether everyone would think the ongoings there were wonderful.

Neil Inkley

Walton-le-Dale

politics

Come on Corbyn, do what is right

What have North Korea, China, Russia, Turkey and now the United Kingdom got in common? We all live in one-party states.

So come on Jeremy Corbyn, do the decent thing.

Richard Tandy

Address supplied

brexit

March 29, 2019 – Independence Day

Now that the Prime Minister has said Britain will leave the EU on March 29, 2019, can the Prime Minister and her Government now declare it a national Bank Holiday? It would be great to call it Independence Day.

P Rhodes via email