A heartfelt thank you

My fantastic and courageous wife died in the Salisbury Hospice on July 7.

Rose was diagnosed with inoperable cancer on May 10. The community nursing care and her final three weeks in the Hospice could have been a nightmare.

The care for my wife and the concern expressed and demonstrated to all the members of our family was exemplary.

Yes, the stress felt by all those surrounding Rose was tough and hard to bear, that it was bearable was very much due to the high quality of those professionals.

This open letter is simply to say a heartfelt, thank you!

Peter M G Hime, Salisbury

Marvel at our city in bloom

It is nice for once to write about a success for the council.

With all the buddleia in full bloom in the centre and the verges of the ring road.

The council were worried that the travelling public were not getting a chance to properly enjoy the annual summer display, so it came up with a master plan, to slow down the traffic throughout the city. At the peak of summer they arranged for roadworks on the New Bridge Road Avon bridge. This has been the master stroke has enabled visitors to spot the many types of fauna on display. By not brushing out the gutters several rare types of grass have established alongside the bushes, also a much better chance to marvel at the nearly 3ft high grass along the A36 southbound dual carriage way.

What a master stroke to not cut it for three years.

Andy Cooke, Salisbury

Just do the decent thing

CAN any of your readers help me understand why someone would go to all the effort of picking up and bagging their dog’s poo and then leave the now poo-filled bag behind? It’s like going to the loo and not flushing; you’re only doing half the job.

As regular dog-walkers my wife and I are lucky to have the lovely River Bourne Community Farm and White Bridge river-side walks on our door-step. However over recent months I’m sure that people think our jug (Jack Russell / pug cross) must have a serious bowel problem as there are times when we’ve picked up and carried to the nearest bin an extra two, three, even four poo bags that other dog-walkers have left behind.

So, whoever you are, let me be the one to break it to you gently . . . there is no such thing as the dog-poo fairy who cleans up after you’ve partially cleaned up. Don’t feel embarrassed carrying a bag of poo to the nearest bin. It shows you’re considerate. Just do the decent thing and finish the job properly; bag it and bin it!

Neil Leacy, Salisbury

Bring back school of nursing

I would like to respond to Dr McKeown’s letter (Postbag, August 3) regarding the matter of recruiting nurses, doctors and other NHS professionals.

This is a classic case of a “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face” scenario: Salisbury had a perfectly good School of Nursing, always busy and full of students.

It closed, its building sold for houses, and students now have to go to Bournemouth to do a degree course.

Surely the easiest way of getting people into nursing is to keep the training local, have a foundation year (i.e. be a nursing auxiliary on the wards for a year to get vital experience of what it’s like) and then go into full time nursing training.

That way there are extra pairs of hands on the wards, the NHS will get genuine people who want to be nurses into the system and of course students won’t have the dreaded student debt hanging over them.

It would be interesting to see out of those on the course, or those who have done the course over the past few years, who are actually working as nurses and how many have come to Salisbury District Hospital.

The above expression is also relevant to the closures of Newbridge Hospital and Harvard Hospital, both of which would have made good transitional units for those who need to be discharged but waiting for community care to be put into place.

Jenny Gee, Winterslow

Solemn occasion

Yet again we hear from Steve Baldock on the anniversary of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. Having been exposed last year as lacking in conscience, he now at least makes a nodding acknowledgement of the Japanese casualties of a conventional war. However if you follow his logic, it leads to an earlier first use of nuclear weapons to avoid conventional wars,surely an even more appalling prospect.

Mr Baldock seems to have a personal hang-up about events in Japan leading to August 1945. This leads him year after year to belittle and disparage the solemn and moving occasion that is the candle float. Let me therefore offer him this story by way of therapy.

My late father was excused military service in World War Two on health grounds but, wanting to combat fascism, joined the Indian Army, and served in that sector, confronting the Japanese, and earning several medals for bravery.

In later life as a diplomat he enjoyed cordial relationships with his Japanese colleagues and, most pertinently was a keen supporter of the CND and its aim of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

I look forward to reading Mr Baldock’s 2018 letter to assess what progress he has made in his thinking. He can rest assured that the Salisbury candle float will continue for many years to come.

Incidentally I would be interested to know about Mr Baldock’s personal carbon footprint - though maybe not including flights to Japan.

Tim Sedgwick-Jell, Harnham

Turbine trouble

In response to Mr Poole’s letter (Postbag, August 3) regarding free wind turbines. They are most definitely not free! The larger wind turbines can cost anything up to £3m each!

All of these are heavily subsidised by most of us, through taxes and energy bills.

They have a lifespan of 25 years and a study estimates that routine wear and tear, will more than double the cost of electricity being produced by wind, than through other conventional ways. There is also a cost to maintain them in good working order. Can you recycle them when they are old?

As for looking elegant, windmills are, but these are the very opposite. Live in close proximity to one and you would not be thinking that due to the noise and the absence of wildlife.

And then we have the problem if it is too windy they are turned off, not windy enough, no power. You have to have backup supplies of fuel. As for everyone having electric cars, that will be an interesting scenario, with wind turbines,and recharging machines absolutely covering everywhere there is a bit of green open space. Once again these need factories to produce all the machinery needed. Not exactly environmentally friendly.

Frank Robson, Salisbury

Green energy action plea

WE share Andrew Poole’s sense of frustration that the natural resources of Wiltshire are wasted and ignored when it comes to energy generation.

We are the ‘City of Five Rivers’, yet there are no hydro or microhydro installations.

We have free sunlight most days, and thousands of roofs, but very few of them are generating electricity and revenue for their owners.

We even have the windy expanse of Salisbury Plain, with huge untapped potential.

We’re pleased to say, however, that we - Salisbury Community Energy - have recently been grant-funded to take forward renewable energy in this area. We’re carrying out feasibility studies on (environmentally sensitive) solar pv and hydro.

We’ll be funding site installations, if they have public support, via community share offers. If you’d like to get involved and support this, please get in touch via our website.

Alison Craig, Dave Dunford, and Benji Goehl

Directors, Salisbury Community Energy

Patronising nonsense

THE letters page last week, Are you kidding me? Why on earth would your editor allow the publication of a letter written by Timothy Stroud about whether Scaramucci was related to Scaramanga? Irrespective of whether it’s a good joke (I guess it’s a joke, there isn’t really a punch line; presumably they might be related because they have they have nearly the same name, because one is fictitious or because one is nicknamed The Mooch? Yes, the more I think of it, I really don’t understand it.) Anyway, my real point is that I just don’t understand why it would appear in the local paper; it bears no connection to the local area or issues. What have you lowered yourself to, publishing nonsense like this that would be better consigned to pointless internet chat rooms. It increased my levels of disbelief just long enough to forget how incredibly patronising Mr and Mrs M J Howard were in judging that the cleaners of the Wardrobe were deserving of at least £9 or £10 an hour.

I think it was meant to be a compliment. I can’t think of anything more condescending.

I will cancel my delivery of this local paper for local people if I ever read such nonsense again.

Chris Lee, Salisbury