Foxhunting is alien to millions of people (From York Press)

Foxhunting is alien to millions of people

8:47am Tuesday 30th May 2006 in Letters By Reader's letter

I USUALLY ignore Mike Bentley's weekly outpouring of right-wing bile. However, I must respond to his column of May 27 (Cross about taxi flag ban).

It seems that three items in the recently-published list of English icons cause Mr Bentley grief.

They are all connected with black or Asian Britons, and he simply can't believe the "Great British Public" would vote for them rather than for foxhunting.

For your information, Mr Bentley, the Great British Public no longer consists solely of white, Anglo-Saxon, forelock-tugging rustics or landed gentry.

To the many millions of people like myself, who grew up in multicultural industrial cities, foxhunting is as alien and irrelevant as the Japanese tea ceremony. And we love visiting places like Brick Lane for their lively shops, markets, trendy bars and restaurants.

If you can bear to drag yourself away from your rural time-warp and visit the capital, try it. You never know, you might find you like it.

Lesley Jefferis, Lynwood View, Copmanthorpe, York.