Readers' letters - August 8

Anyone during the hot spell would have taken the option of parking their car on a street under a tree’s canopy if possible, especially when the temperature could be 10°C cooler.

And especially when they have to consider the effects of heat on the vulnerable, the elderly, children and pets.

The shade from urban trees extends pavement life because it reduces the amount of expansion and contraction caused by

the daily heating of the asphalt.

Would this not also apply to roads, especially where they are tree-lined on both sides?

Another study indicates that trees have a calming effect on teenagers and young adults suffering from ADHD.

Undoubtedly trees release social stress for all people – there are many links between the absence of trees and antisocial behaviour.

Researchers have, moreover, demonstrated that motorists suffer less road rage in green urban areas compared to more barren ones and that street trees can help make our cities safer.

Fresh evidence of their benefits to city life is constantly uncovered.

Wendy Jenrick

Address supplied

education

Head should

be applauded

Regarding your article on a pupil’s absence from a Preston school in term time – Mr Ranson is not the bad guy (Pupil threatened with prom ban for going to term-time family wedding, LP July 16).

What self-indulgent, distorted planet are people living on when we go after one of the region’s best headteachers for setting high standards? Do we want outstanding schools in our area or a race to the bottom?

Well done to the headteacher, Mr Ranson. You are to be applauded for your unwavering stance on standards and the results your outstanding school delivers.

Have we really reached a point where some parents really think that “the biggest event of a pupil’s school life” is the prom?

Here we are, in the real world, thinking preparations for further education, careers, examinations and the resulting qualifications for a better life are the most important events.

It saddens me to see our children’s education being traded for a few days on the beach.

We must never take a single day of world class education for granted.

We have worked hard as a nation to provide this for our children and it holds far more long-term value for a child than a day in the sun. Yours, left is a state of disbelief,

Samuel Wickwar

Ashton

NOSTALGIA

The House of Bewlay Pipes

Re: Looking Back, July 11. The shop is The House of Bewlay Pipes, sellers of fine Bewlay pipes and tobacconists, (on Cheapside, Preston).

To the best of my knowledge, the shop,(pictured above inset, courtesy of Preston Digital Archive), operated in Preston for more than 50 years.

The sun canopy had Theckston Retail Tobacconist printed onto it.

I saw a photo of the 1972 Guild Parade, on Market Place, Preston. I thought, my, hasn’t Cheapside changed?

There were a lot of shoe shops, and there more just around the corner in Fishergate.

What is now Thomas Yates Jewellers was, at that time, a tobacconists’ shop. You don’t find many of those nowadays.

There was only two specialists of tobacco in Preston – House of Bewlay Pipes and a shop on the corner of Fishergate and Guildhall Street.

It may have been called Woods Tobacconists, before becoming George Banks Jewellers.

It is now a mobile phone shop.

Geoff Wilkinson

via email

Law

Fines getting out of hand

I recently read about a lady being fined for littering. She had dropped a cigarette end and was ordered to pay the court over £300.

Who are the people

who set these outrageous fines?

By all means issue fines for littering but let’s not go raving mad.

Some people who are put in a position of power tend to abuse it.

There seems to be no limit to what they can demand from you. How long will it be before we get to £1,000 for a minor offence?

Things seem to have got out of hand and are getting worse. Some time ago I wrote about the approach of a police state... well, it’s looking like I was right.

Name and address supplied