I AM saddened and dismayed by what I read and hear about the apparently bitter and acrimonious dispute over the temporary closure of the bell tower at York Minster.

I was born and brought up in York and attended St Peter’s School before leaving the city to attend university.

The Minster was, and still is, a very special place for me - a place of pilgrimage. And the sound of its bells from my boyhood are part of the soundtrack of my life.

I know only what I have read and heard in the media, which I know will not be the whole story.

But, having worked with volunteers for much of my working life - in the Church and in secular charitable settings - I am troubled by the obvious sense of hurt and injustice felt by the bellringers.

Loyal, committed, dedicated people such as these do not react with such strength of feeling without good reason and I fear they may have been treated unfairly and ungraciously.

I fear that bureaucracy and “management speak” have triumphed over common sense, decency and old fashioned Christian charity.

The arbitrary and authoritarian approach of modern secular management has little place in a religious setting where values of mutuality, grace and openness to one another are supposed to be exemplified.

John C Lacy, Horsforth, Leeds