Readers' letters - March 21

More paper bags needed
EU has given us more choice of supermarkets, according to one correspondentEU has given us more choice of supermarkets, according to one correspondent
EU has given us more choice of supermarkets, according to one correspondent

Regarding plastic carrier bags, I can’t help feeling like a criminal when walking out of a shop after purchasing goods, even though I carry my own bags in which to place them.

In particular, departmental stores after buying personal items ie. clothes, perfume, shoes, make-up etc. Yes, I know we have the receipts as proof of purchase but it still makes me feel that something is not quite right. I really do begrudge being charged five pence per carrier bag used in each store.

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I do feel we should have bags for life when purchasing food at supermarkets. That stands to reason, but I also think it is disgraceful that the major departmental stores have not yet had adequate time to convert to supplying paper carrier bags free of charge.

Are they making a profit on these carriers, as I understand they cost only one pence to produce? If Primark and Oasis etc can do it, then why can’t they?

There is nothing more uplifting than walking out of a “posh” shop having purchased something new in a fancy carrier bag displaying my purchase and advertising the store it was bought from, rather than searching for my own in a handbag at the counter and feeling like a second rate citizen.

Ann Dawson, via email

Europe has so much to offer

Aren’t we all getting fed up with the politicians and their claims, counter-claims and point scoring. No explanations for us which tell us really what we stand to lose or gain after June 23.

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We all like to have food at reasonable prices and in the EU we can enjoy fruit and vegetables from Spain, French wine or Danish bacon and it won’t cost us a fortune. Without the EU we wouldn’t have had Aldi or Lidl! During my working life I was glad to know that my working rights were protected by the EU and couldn’t be eroded by our government. Now I am retired I could go and live in a warmer country in the EU and have no problems accessing my pension and receiving health care thanks to reciprocal arrangements within the EU.

If I am ill or injured while on holiday in EU I’ll get medical treatment. I can use my mobile phone in Europe and pay no more than I do here, thanks to recent EU legislation.

Holidays in Europe will be more expensive but if you choose to holiday in the UK you will be guaranteed a clean beach thanks to the EU. The existence of the EU has given us 70 years of peace in Europe after centuries of devastating wars. I hope this means my grandson won’t die in a European war. It’s the future of my grandchildren that concerns me.

Currently they are free to travel wherever they like in the EU, they can go and work anywhere they like in the EU and they can study for free at European universities and not saddle themselves with enormous debt.

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Generous funding to business from the EU has made it easier for young people to obtain apprenticeships. What’s not to like? It’s a no-brainer for me: IN is the only answer.

Alison Harris, email

What do the experts know

Perhaps the most glaring omission in George Osborne’s recent Budget was his failure to blame the last Labour Government for his failure to reach some of his most vaunted targets. Who now remembers his claim in the first years of the coalition, the utter importance of retaining our Triple AAA rating. Having failed that test shortly after his utterances, how has he managed to borrow billions since? That and other similar claims puts in perspective how little importance we should attribute to these so called professional financial experts.

Denis Lee, Ashton

Driverless cars take fun away

Driverless cars heading for a road near me eh?

Yes, I can well imagine someone about to take delivery of their girl-pulling, wealth announcing, wind in your hair Aston Martin Vulcan applauding this miserable idea.

So we now enter the next phase of state control all in the name of advanced technology – toy technology comes of age I rather think.

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No more open road, no more freedom of the Queen’s highway – go where you’re told to go - step out of line at your cost.

What a world to come, trapped by our own folly - but somehow I fancy this nonsense will pass and become the domain of the elderly and the infirm.

Joseph G Dawson, Withnell, Chorley

Thank George for the music

What a year so far for musical losses: Bowie, Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane), Dale Griffin (Mott The Hoople), John Bradbury (The Specials), Allen Toussaint, Natalie Cole to mention a few.

Now (Sir) George Martin. Already the politicians who probably don’t have a Beatles album between them are giving their praises. He will, of course, be remembered primarily for his production work with The Beatles.

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So, thank you for Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album, Abbey Road and all those singles: Hey Jude would undoubtedly be one of my Desert Island Discs were I to be asked.

Those are my favourite Beatles albums, but all of them are special, not least for defining the 1960s.

Terry Maunder, via email

Disappearing world we knew

Just pondering the other day on the speed that life passes . I was born in the late 1930s in Preston, in Hammond Street. They demolished it.

I went to Emmanuel School . They closed it. I went on to Preston Grammar School. That went in 1967 .

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Anyway, by that time I was at the Evening Post, so in 1989 they knocked that down. Never daunted, on to Broughton Printers.

Ah well , that didn’t survive either! I think the word I am searching for is jinx.

Allan Fazackerley, Penwortham