Tough luck

1:17pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

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HEREWITH comments of a Second World War widow to add to those of Richard Foster's "moving account of Yorkshire men who said no to the First World War". (Book review, The Press, April 12).

I shed no tears for any punishment claimed to have been inflicted upon those conscientious objectors of the First World War. These shirkers were the authors of their own misfortune - if it may so be described.

So far as Bert Brockleby's "blighted" career as a teacher was concerned, well tough luck. That was his own, self-imposed problem.

During the difficult years of the Great Depression between the two wars, teaching jobs were very scarce. Bert Brocklesby would not be the only school teacher who could not find a suitable job for which he was supposedly trained.

At that time there was also the threat of what was referred to as (if my memory serves me well) the Geddes Axe hanging over the teaching profession.

Surely Bert, the conscientious objector, did not expect to be regarded as a hero and to have had preferential treatment in the furtherance of his teaching career? Maybe he did, we will never know.

Ida Mary Goodrick, Woodlands Avenue, Tadcaster.