Wirral News Letters, 24/08/2011

Aug 24 2011 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

Enforce law on cocklers

FOLLOWING your article, ‘We don’t want cockling chaos’ (Wirral News, August 17) I don’t share Brian Kenny’s confidence in the council given their lamentable performance last year.

Once again our councillors seem incapable of influencing the Sea Fisheries Committee of which, it is my understanding, they are themselves members.

They also seem incapable of influencing the Secretary of State who is a politician serving a government made up of two of the main parties.

It might be helpful if Mr Kenny shared his plans on a line by line basis with the public so we can see whether he is doing his job properly and can ensure he corrects any deficiencies in those plans in time.

Presumably those plans include ensuring the police enforce the laws against litter on cocklers in the same way they would do on other members of the public?

It would also be helpful if Mr Kenny would make clear the legal status of taking vehicles on to the foreshore (banned for ordinary mortals) and what he intends to do to enforce it?

DAVID GRAY

Wallasey

Wiccan tradition

I WISH Sarah Murphy well with her new Wiccan shop at Birkenhead Market (Birkenhead edition, August 17), having noted on a recent trip to Boscastle, Cornwall, that the world-famous Museum of Witchcraft there continues to attract a multitude of tourists spurred on by basic curiosity, while also providing a valuable educational resource about a much misrepresented system of beliefs.

There is obviously more than merely residual interest in the subject, and surely anything bringing a greater sense of variety to the market itself – while also hopefully attracting customers who might on visiting favour additional stores with their business – is to be encouraged.

As for the shop’s location, it seems more than appropriate. The acknowledged Wiccan ‘King of the Witches’, Alex Sanders (formerly Orrell Alexander Carter) was actually born in Birkenhead in 1926,.

His family lived at an address on Moon Street prior to moving to Manchester during the 1930s.

Sanders was founder of the ‘Alexandrian tradition’, and acted as folklore advisor on the cult 1973 horror film The Wicker Man.

LESLIE CARTER

Address supplied

Anger at driver

MY dog was involved in a collision with a car on Saughall Massie Road on August 2 at around 8.30am.

I write with concern and anger because after hitting my dog, the car driver simply drove away.

I had been exercising both of my dogs on the large field opposite the Saughall Road junction when one of them became separated from me.

Slightly worried, I retraced my steps and saw that she'd made her way back across the busy Saughall Massie road and was heading towards home.

Very luckily, a woman driver and a business van with a couple of men had stopped along Saughall Road and had got out of their vehicles to try to help catch her.

Unfortunately they could not catch her and as she tried to make her way back to me across the road, to my horror I saw a blue estate speeding down the hill from West Kirby towards her.

This driver hit my dog, stopped, then simply drove away.

The driver must have heard my screams and seen the efforts of those kind souls who tried to help us.

I would like to send my deepest and heartfelt thanks to those of you, particularly the lady driver, who stopped and tried to help.

I took my dog straight to the vet for a check-over, and it was found that she has cataracts developing. She probably lost sight of me and headed back home.

As for the speeding driver, I hope that someday when you need it, humanity and all creatures great and small will offer to show you more compassion and empathy than you showed towards my much beloved 12-year-old dog.

I hope this also highlights the further need to slow down to 30 mph as you drive along Saughall Massie Road and enter the residential area.

You never know what is just around the corner and next time it could be a small child.

ERIN WILKINSON

Saughall Massie