HAVING informed my wife on New Year’s Day that I was having a gap year from writing letters to The Press, I now feel compelled to break my resolution.

I thank Graeme Robertson for his annual review of readers’ letters in The Press over many years (Letters, January 10). His reviews will be missed by contributors far and wide.

On behalf of myself, and I am sure all letter writers, best wishes for a long and happy retirement. Good luck and enjoy.

Peter Newton, Montague Street, York.

 

• I WAS sorry to read that the summary of Reader’s Letters of 2013 was possibly going to be the final one from Graeme Robertson. I have looked forward to his annual analysis over many past years and was eagerly anticipating the current submission – to find out what had happened to many of the old regulars whose names no longer seem to appear.

Above all, I would like to see the letters league table to see who has been most successful, and was hoping next year we might see a woman in first place.

Dorothy Reed, Middlethorpe Drive, York.

 

• I’D LIKE to thank Graeme Robertson for his annual letters review which, sadly, he says is likely to be his last. I always look forward to this New Year round-up as the letters page is my favourite section of the newspaper. I like it that letter writers have to use their real names, unlike on the website where comments are mostly by people hiding their identities. I enjoy the cut and thrust of most of the letter writers, although, obviously I don’t agree with some of their opinions.

I do wish, however, that lies could be edited out. After all, if I ramble, my letters are edited, and if someone sends in something slanderous or libellous, that isn’t printed. Those stating that the planet is cooling, for instance, are welcome to their opinion, but to state it as fact is infuriating, as well as ignorant.

I do hope The Press will continue compiling and publishing a Letters Review. I’m looking forward to next January already.

John Cossham, Hull Road, York.

 

• SEEING my name mentioned as one of letter writers for 2013 prompts me to explain how I started writing to The Press.

At the beginning of last year, a mention in The Press over a tourist asking for directions to the Minster while standing in full view of the building inspired me to write of a similar incident in Galway, Ireland.

I had never sent an email before or indeed written to a newspaper, so this was daunting. I was not even sure that the email had been sent, so it was much to my surprise that the letter was then published.

Although an avid reader and a lover of books, I have never been a good smeller (sorry, speller). Every letter printed is a boost to my spelling confidence.

Can I just say this to your many readers: if I can write to The Press, so can you. We all have a story to tell, an anecdote to pass on, a wrong to right.

Don’t think twice about it; just do it.

David Michael Deamer, Penleys Grove Street, Monkgate, York.