CHRISTMAS just wouldn't be Christmas here in York without Berwick Kaler!

So I was absolutely delighted to read the fabulous full page article by Mike Laycock in the York Press recently regarding Berwick & co's forthcoming pantomime return to York's Grand Opera House this Christmas in The Adventures Of Old Granny Goose!

It was my much loved and much missed grandmother who introduced me to Berwick in pantomime way back in 1977 (Cinderella at York Theatre Royal) and here I am 45 years later having never missed a single one of Berwick's panto masterpieces and just as excited about this years offering as I was back then.

In fact I will go as far as to say that Berwick Kaler, Martin Barrass, Suzy Cooper, David Leonard and AJ Powell are just as important (if not more so) to our family at Christmas time as Santa Claus!

Stephen Cass

Key Way,

Fulford, York

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York's anti-terror barriers won't deter

THE biggest lesson to be learned from the Manchester Arena bombing is that vehicle barriers are futile and their construction in York is a costly error which not only scars our urban fabric but impedes access for service vehicles and disabled persons alike.

The Manchester casualties were all caused by a bomb in a rucksack. No vehicle barrier would have made the slightest difference. This will not have gone unnoticed by those who wish to do us harm.

Moreover, the proposed York barriers would only protect certain areas, leaving many other pedestrian-rich targets wide open to vehicle attack.

The so-called security experts have got it wrong. The £5 million earmarked to come out of highways budgets to pay for this idiocy can be better spent.

Citizens have a greater risk of injury or death from treacherous pot holes on unrepaired roads than they do from any terrorist deciding to choose York as a random target.

Matthew Laverack,

Lord Mayors Walk,

York

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Listen to Einstein over Heronby

EINSTEIN apocryphally said insanity ‘was doing the same thing over and over again , and expecting something different to happen’.

Heronby’s come-back piece (“Heronby plan…”The Press, November 3, 2022) to the City of York’s robust opposition does just this.

Merely repeating the very plans that city of York planners had already eviscerated in their study.

There was no answer to the analysis - ‘Realistic trip generation figures’ would mean ‘vehicle trips north on the A19 nearing a doubling of the current AM peak flow in the York direction’.

Nor the damning point that the pupil figures used ‘makes it unlikely that the site will …generate sufficient secondary-aged pupils to support a new secondary school onsite’, and thus mean a huge additional strain on existing educational infrastructure for decades.

Don’t know who Heronby think they are, but Einstein they ain’t!

Phil Wade

Carrs Meadow

Escrick

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Why we have to have some censorship

RE: Scott Marmion's letter about twitter. As I read it, in his world it's fine to verbally abuse and demonise lgbt communities.

Perhaps it's OK to encourage children to self harm? Acceptable to permit psychopaths like Hitler, Stalin and many others to brainwash people to go to war, or idiots like Trump to incite riots?

There has to be censorship to some extent.

G Brian Ledger,

Copmanthorpe, York