Letter to the Wirral Globe about the sale of the Wilfred Owen memorial Fields. 07.02.2012.

Sir,


Wilfred Owen and the millions of others whose lives were taken in WW1 and 2 died in the filth of dispute. It matters therefore that their countrymen and families should be able to remember them in the places they were born and raised before being so cruelly cut down in no-man's land, in the dirt and squalor of war.

Mr Anson (letters 18.01. 2012) thinks we could or should just nip over to the Commomwealth War Graves sites if we wish to commemorate them. What he illustrates by default is that, unlike Tranmere Rovers FC and WBC, those originally responsible for placing and maintaining the Commonwealth War Graves would not have dreamed of turning over the turf and memory of the fallen dead to turn a penny. Nor should we.



Yours,





Louise Stothard

Letter to Majed

February, 2010.

　

Dear Majed,

I am sending you the poem I wrote several years after my
father died. Needless to say, I loved him and think of him every day, as I do
my dear Mum, who died last year. The poem is just as much for her, as for your friends and fellow countrymen, as much for the loss of anyone you love.

My parents were modest, intelligent and compassionate. Like you, they had
both been teachers.

For my father.

All effort, doubt, consideration
are banished to the greater silence,
availing us nothing,
availing you nothing.
Matters you would fix
stray away, undetermined.

The slant intent of your signature
is laid to waste-
though how could we ever think it would be?
The purpose of your thought in that last written instruction,
emphasized as you were failing
over and over again
is kept in the bureau, the mind.

Now has come the yawning, deafening silence,
the relentlessness of a world
going on from horror to horror,
the once-charmed carriage-clock
beating out the dead hour, demented;
a wound-up thing set aside
to carry on its dull duty;
the kitchen drawer roaring
where it used to draw warmly
and the fruitless imperative
of the chaffinch's song.

Everything you loved
we loved too.
Love breaks the heart
when we cannot share it,
crying in mute sufferance,
brimming over the full vessel,
or cracking it, remaining
though the living world
may banish us.

How do we throw love away?

Love  to your family and the pupils you teach,

Lou.

Princely duties. 10.06.10.

Sir,
in a sneering 'Commentary' (Times 10.06) Oliver Kamm accuses Prince Charles of being unscientific and of 'mumbo-jumbo' in addressing the causes of environmental degradation and economic collapse head-on.
It is precisely because the Prince identifies 'you and me' and our desire to consume as the cause that his observations are so compelling, scientific, you might say. It is we who objectify Nature as the enemy, or at the very least as a thing to be put to our own use.
Neither can Mr. Kamm refute, scientifically, the Prince's proposition that 'the desire for financial profit ignores spiritual teachings.'
If only other public figures, whether scientific or otherwise) would say what the Prince, with wisdom and courage (yes, it takes courage, Mr.Kamm) dares to say i.e. that 'it would help if the world reduced its desire to consume.'
Prince Charles does have a duty to foster debate and insight through the public arena as well as through his own work. He does so with a brilliance, a passion, a sense of responsibility that is truly inspiring.
Or would Oliver Kamm rather he had no opinion?

Yours,
Louise Stothard.
　
　

Savaging the fox

Sir,
Janice Turner ('Urban foxes: a brush with danger' Times 08.06.) plays to the tabloid myth of fox as child molester, one whose hysteria is bound to result in the depraved practice of urban fox-hunting, in which the 'sport' is pursued not with red coat and hound but with pet dog, marksman or paid assassin.A fox was recently found burned to death in the picture postcard village of Thornton Hough. Two were mauled by pet dogs in separate parks also on the Wirral. These incidents preceded 'foxville', the incident to which Ms. Turner's article refers.

In the greater scheme of things, and as Ms.Turner herself admits, after giving the urban fox a savaging, there are very much greater threats to the person from domestic animals, dogs in particular. She cites Dr. Phil Baker, Lecturer in Conservation Ecology at Reading University who points out that attacks by a fox are rare in comparison with those by dogs and, perhaps more surprisingly, by cats. There have been many cases of savage attacks by dogs on young children in the last few years, with several fatalities and scores of minor attacks by unleashed dogs in urban areas.
The stoking up of prejudice matters because it may add a baying chorus of urban dwellers to the pro-fox-hunting lobby and because David Cameron is known to support a repeal of the Hunting Ban.

Yours,
L. Stothard

To my local Parliamentery candidate

Dear Sir,
replacing the Trident missile system would be pouring a vast amount of money (100 billion and counting) down a very deep, dark, bottomless and dangerous hole at the taxpayer's expense. Scrapping the system, on the other hand would make Britain and the world a safer place.
We had far better spend on investment, education and the production of alternate energy, or perhaps not at all and all at a fraction of the cost!
Just do the maths!

To all the Archbishops and Bishops of all England.07.02.2009

Dear Sir,
the eyes of the world have watched the ongoing massacre visited upon the Palestinian peoples in Gaza, planned to inflict the maximum number of casualties. N.G.O.'s/ aid agencies who sought to alleviate the human suffering have been refused entry into Gaza, as has the world's media for fear that they report the full extent of this massacre.
In addition to to the repeated waves of heavy bombardment by F16 fighter jets, the IDF heavy artillery shelling of people, their homes, hospitals and medical centres, police stations, government buildings, factories ,places of worship and farmland there has been the deployment of phosphorous shells (which burn the flesh slowly to the bone) DIME bombs and Flechettes (bombs that discharge millions of tiny arrows which bend upon entry). These weapons are illegal and their use has been declared a war crime by the United Nations.
The so-called war that has been practised upon Gazans is part of a far larger historical picture in which Israel has illegally occupied, annexed, or laid claim to Palestinian and other territories, including parts of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and land claimed by the construction of the Apartheid Wall. The Wall itself was declared illegal in 2004 by the International Court of Justice.
Since the Annapolis Peace Conference of 2007, Israel has accelerated its programme of building illegal settlements, connecting roads, and infrastructure, demolishing countless Palestinian homes. It has also been systematically bulldozing, burning, grubbing up or claiming olive groves and orange orchards, often the lifelong subsistence crops of Palestinian farmers.
Convoys from the ICRC and other humaitarian aid agencies have been shelled and burned as they tried to bring in aid and supplies. Some of these have been taxed or confiscated at the border crossings.
All such crimes violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, numerous U.N. Seecurity Council resolutions and are a collective punishment of the Palestinian peoples.
They require and receive investment by external companies such as Agrexco, Veolia,and Caterpillar. Without the Israeli-European Trade Agreement, moreover, the Israeli war machine would not have been able to amass and deploy such devastating firepower as it did.

However, some organisations and churches are announcing that they will no longer invest in Israel. Unilever recently divested from a factory in an illegal settlement and the U.S. Episcopalian Diocese of New Hampshire has voted for a disinvestment. In the U.K., the Methodist Church refuses to invest in companies that support the Occupation.

I therefore strongly urge you as a representative of the Church of England and at its forthcoming general Synod to finally implement the policy it agreed upon in 2006 on the Palestinian Occupied Territories and to call for disinvestment from companies that support and fund Israel's military offensives.
In so doing, you would be providing a moral compass for the whole world. You would be upholding the precious principles of compassion, international law and human dignity.

Letter to the Indy 24.0108

Sir, your editorial (22nd Jan.08) rightly blasts the patio heater for gobbling energy, yet exonerates the 4x4, which it describes as 'at least fulfilling a genuine purpose'...which is 'traversing road-less fields and hills'.
What reason could possibly be less genuine than taking any car, let alone the gas-guzzling 4x4 over roadless fields and hills.
They're bad enough on roads!
Yours,
L. Stothard.