Evening Press Reader's Letter

I watched Coronation Street on March 3, the same day that the Press published the defence by Liz Savage of the Street's story of a pregnant 13-year-old girl. What a mawkish, sorry business.

Here is a commercial enterprise filling the gormless minds of its disciples with the sad story of a selfish, spoilt child, who has never received any parental instruction in the genteel art of keeping her knickers on. If parents insist on abdicating their obligation to protect their daughters from marauding males, then the alternative solution is simple; it's called a chastity belt.

If the TV moguls are right and we only want to watch miserable people wallowing in self-pity, then why not simply watch the news? But watching the news requires the application of more than 30 seconds mental concentration. The TV bosses have already decided we are a nation of mindless blockheads, so they feed us the kind of rubbish we deserve: Coronation Street; EastEnders; Emmerdale; Home And Away, Brookside and the pinnacle of mind-blowing tripe, Neighbours.

Liz Savage's comments are a classic example of loose thinking. She will be surprised to learn that we do not: "All sit down and watch soaps together; and soak up attitudes from them." She paints a world wherein we all sit in front of the box with vacant, loose-jawed faces gazing from space, into space. Let her speak for herself.

Robert Holmes,

Thorganby,

York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.