YOUR VIEWS: Lights are badly needed at local junctions on A9
Having driven on the A9 for the last 50 years, I now find the junctions at both Aviemore north and south very difficult to judge in the dark.
I would suggest they need to be lit up at night.
The Newtonmore junction needs a better vision display for cars driving north.
It is difficult if cars are coming north at speed – they are on you before you know it.
And for the wise guys reading this: I have passed my HGV medical in the last month so my eyesight, I can assure them, is perfectly okay.
I am speaking from personal experience and many other drivers will agree about this dangerous junctions.
John Kirk
Nethy Bridge.
* * *
Lets control area will harm tourism
Am I the only one struggling with Highland councillor Bill Lobban’s logic on short-term holiday letting?
How can he describe a policy designed to restrict individuals’ rights to use their own property for short-term holiday let – a policy not simply aimed at future purchasers who would purchase in the knowledge of the removal of these rights but also to owners of property who have developed and invested in such properties over the last 10 years in pursuit of their then rights – as ‘definitely not an attack on our essential tourism marketplace’?
Gordon Thomson
Gordonhall Farmhouse
Kingussie.
* * *
Scotland's part in Argentina's World Cup success
With Argentina winning the World Cup for the third time, under superstar captain Lionel Messi, let us not forget the key role that Scots played in this success.
Top Stories
-
WATCH: Boxing champion Tyson Fury spotted strolling barechested and in kilt along Grantown’s High Street
-
‘She makes a friend of everybody’ - The Highland walking group that is making a real difference for visually impaired people
-
Two hundred walkers to follow 23 mile ghost train trail
-
A9 traffic diverted after Carrbridge lorry and bridge drama
Beyond current Argentine player, Alexis MacAllister, whose ancestry can be traced back to Fife, it was two Scots, Alexander Watson Hutton and Alex Lamont, who were responsible for developing the game in the country. Indeed, Watson Hutton is considered ‘The Father of Argentine football’.
Born in the Gorbals in 1853, he emigrated to Argentina in 1882 where he taught at St Andrew’s Scots School in Buenos Aires and then went on to found the Buenos Aires English School.
In 1891, the Association Argentine Football League was established by another Scot, Alex Lamont, who was headteacher at St Andrew’s school and is recognised as the first football league in the country, as well as outside the British Isles.
It lasted only one season and was won by a team of Scots from St Andrew’s.
Two years later Watson Hutton, established the Argentine Association Football League and restarted the tournament.
In 1898 his school formed a football team which went on to become the most decorated team in Argentine football until its dissolution in 1911.
So, when one witnesses the ecstatic scenes in Argentina, spare a thought for the pivotal role played by Scots in that nation’s footballing success.
Alex Orr
2/3 Marchmont Road
Edinburgh.
* * *
Jane’s perfect Christmas mix
Re your online story “Jane McDonald gives the strath a big hug for a seasonal special”.
Jane really embodies the magic of Christmas for me.
Her sense of fun, adventure, and slight naughtiness combined with her deeply caring and kind nature – it’s the perfect mix.
Even reading your article has cheered me up.
She talked about going back to her Scottish roots – I’d love to see her appear on the BBC’s ‘Who do you think you are?”
Vanna Cresswell-Forrester
Canterbury.
* * *
New Lang Syne
Sadly, with the joy of Christmas over the winter of discontent deepens, fuelled by this corrupt and incompetent UK Tory administration.
However let us rejoice, with hope in our hearts, as the dawn of a new year approaches. Scotland must now galvanise its people to work with renewed vigour for a fairer and greener independent Scotland.
Contrary to Westminster’s bleak economic scenario, Scotland is a rich and well endowed land and should never ever have so many cold and hungry people attending food banks.
Furthermore all minority groups, in whatever capacity, should be respected, protected and fairly treated.
I shout to the world the ageless sentiment of this old anonymous verse:-
Oh radiant star of Bethlehem
Shine on us yet again
Bring peace and hope and charity
To rule the hearts of men.
Grant Frazer
Cruachan
Newtonmore
* * *
What about staging Indy preliminary poll?
The pro-independence rallies held in towns and cities across Scotland on the evening after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the right of Holyrood to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence suggest that, while the legal niceties may have been tidied away to Westminster’s satisfaction, the political question remains unanswered: how do the voters of a member nation of a supposedly voluntary union trigger a process of orderly secession from that union, if a majority so wish?
Given that referenda are lengthy, divisive and expensive, the Scots surely need an enabling ‘Stage 1’ mechanism of some sort.
Accordingly, it is proposed that Scottish voters be given the power to decide when, if ever, there should be another referendum on independence which could be achieved by Westminster’s legislating to conduct a ‘Preliminary Poll’ of Scots coterminous with the next UK general election.
Such a poll could be used to determine whether the Scots want a referendum on independence in the new Parliament, with such legislation embodying provision for a second referendum, should the Scots want it.
This additional poll could become a permanent feature of all future Westminster elections in Scotland and could be extended for use in Wales and Northern Ireland.
A Westminster-approved “Preliminary Poll” of this nature would settle the future of the Union for the foreseeable future by putting the voters of the Celtic Nations, rather than politicians, in the driving seat.
It would enable Scots of every political persuasion on both sides of the independence debate to determine whether they want a referendum and to make that decision in a considered and timely fashion at the same time as they were electing representatives to preside over the governance of the Union.
This proposal is being circulated as a suggested way out of what is threatening to become a major constitutional crisis.
Westminster should adopt it as a conciliatory, continuing and open-handed gesture, evidencing confidence in a Union where membership is nevertheless acknowledged to be voluntary.
David Green
Hartwood Road
Southport.
