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Allow all nationalities to enjoy Christmas fun
I work in a nursery where we celebrate all the different cultural events and holidays.
This past term alone the children and their families enjoyed Bonfire Night, Halloween, Diwali, Ramadan, Eid-Ui-Adha and Hanukkah.
However some parents of our non-Christian children gave instructions that their children should not take part in the Christmas celebrations.
This is so naive.
Their children will almost certainly 'pick up' on the events and activities and will know and understand what Christmas is all about.
We avoided the Nativity with these children, but they took part in making glitter stars, decorations and special food preparations (which is almost exactly the same as Diwali).
It is the parents who make the next generation either tolerant or bigoted.
They should give their children the freedom to learn and so become open and tolerant in a world in which we have to live in harmony.
Concerned childcare worker
(full name and address supplied)
Clean streets not new concept
With reference to your letter from Peter Carroll on December 6, in which he discussed the possibility that horses pulling carriages along Blackpool Prom might be fitted with pouches to collect their droppings....
I have a postcard in my collection which would have been handed out with a request for the recipient to return it to London County Council as long ago as June 1894.
It reads: "Gentlemen, with reference to the difficulty and expense of keeping the streets clean, allow me to suggest that, as the great bulk of the dirt is nothing but horse droppings, a very simple contrivance would effectually remedy the nuisance.
All horses can wear breeching or cruppers, and it would be a simple matter to attach a light net to these or to the vehicle to receive the droppings.
The act of lifting the tail would cause the net to open; and the boys and men who now sweep up this drift could be employed to empty the nets.
I may point out that, but for these droppings the asphalt and wooden pavements would not be half so greasy and slippery. There would would be scarcely any dust on them, particularly if you prohibit people sweeping their shops and houses on to the roadway, and they would seldom require watering.
The net would cost next to nothing and would not be unsightly, and people would soon begin to wonder why it was not adopted long ago."
Keeping the streets clean in this way is clearly not a new idea!
Mike Carroll,
address supplied
Have cruelty-free celebration
It would make my Christmas if you were to highlight the cruelty involved in producing foie-gras, the so-called luxury food which involves force-feeding geese and ducks so much that the livers of these beautiful birds swell up to 10 times the size they should be.
There is so much other food around for people to eat which does not involve cruelty.
I say to people: "Have yourselves a foie-gras free Christmas!"
W Fisher,
address supplied
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Weather for Wigan
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
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