Your latest letters to the Advertiser

To have your say on any issue of local interest, just email editorial@helensburghadvertiser.co.uk (please include your name and address).

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What price money? The demeaning undertones of Mr McCormick’s letter last week that the area community should benefit from the economic benefit the Ministry of Defence brings to the area without anything being given in return, should be set aside.

Furthermore, the bulk of the accommodation build he refers to is provided for single personnel who have little option but to take advantage of the service provided.

Servicemen and women are no different from their civilian counterparts when it comes to spending money.

The encouragement to ease purse strings depends to a large extent on the expectation of the value of the product and the service that accompanies the sale.

In Helensburgh, after a difficult couple of years, our retail sector, cafes, bars and restaurants are pulling out all the stops to realise the expectations that our community, including service personnel, deserve. It is improving and will get better.

We hugely welcome the influx of our service compatriots to Helensburgh.

We expect and encourage them to participate fully in community affairs and enjoy the social ambience that they find themselves in.

This is happening already within the community council where the youth, vitality and energy of our naval council members enhances the way we conduct our business.

They therefore play a vital role in the forward momentum the town needs to face the future.

What price money, indeed?

Norman Muir (Convener, Helensburgh Community Council)

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I am afraid that Duncan Stirling’s letter of (November 3) is not factually accurate and when in my letter of October 27 I said the vote for staying in the UK was decisive, this is backed up by the facts.

The vote for Yes was 44.7 per cent and No 55.3 per cent, a margin of 10.6 per cent which equates to a majority of 383,937 people in Scotland who voted in the referendum.

This is much more decisive than the Brexit vote where the difference was only 3.8 per cent.

In the IndyRef there was no third choice to vote for “No with powers”.

If you say something is true often enough that doesn’t make it true. No Mr Stirling, people knew what they were voting for.

The Yes voters assume that those who voted No were duped into doing so – not true.

They wanted to stay part of the UK and the vast majority recorded their vote to do so.

Scotland has now had many more powers devolved and this should be acknowledged and applauded rather than constantly complaining about Westminster.

I again assert that the SNP Scottish Government must concentrate on the day job and tackle the many problems in health, education, economy, roads, and taxation rather than obsessing on IndyRef 2.

Ursula Craig, Shore Road, Cove

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The Christmas light we most need is the divine, and to receive it we do not need electricity - only prayers and good deeds.

But not everyone has this understanding, as we see in the energy waste that follows with the Christmas decorations.

Protest against energy waste this Christmas. Let’s change this tradition for a more human and less commercial.

Energy consumption in December usually increases due to the Christmas holidays and their lighted decorations.

However today, there are campaigns to encourage water and energy saving. But why is it that we need to save energy - and why keep this tradition of carrying lights as Christmas decorations?

We need to save energy because of the impact on nature and the environment.

Generation by thermal power involves the burning of oil, coal or corn, we extract from the earth, which is cleared for planting of raw materials. That might is being used for the production of our food.

The energy generated by hydro-electric means depends on fresh water, which is increasingly scarce on the planet. So life is important to save water and energy.

Christmas decorations maintain a tradition that came when Thomas Alva Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1879 and released it during Christmas 1880.

It was a marketing gimmick that became a tradition in the end of year festivities.

I believe that today this tradition is maintained for similar reasons - to draw attention, attract customers and increase sales.

Even with some awareness of the importance of saving water and energy, no-one gives up the lights on the Christmas decorations, shopping malls, streets, squares, trees, walls, all covered with light.

For what? What is the point? To warm up sales? To maintain a tradition? It makes no sense to waste energy.

Is now not the time to change this Christmas tradition?

The change is necessary to our survival. We changed the way we communicate, to have fun, to relate, to feed ourselves, to live our lives

Can we not change the Christmas decorations removing waste and excess lights?

At Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who died to save his people. A lot of people at this time of year leave their homes to help others in a gesture of solidarity. But many still follow old rituals and traditions that leave the heart empty and stomach full.

Besides the issue of energy waste in this holiday season, there are other subjects that also deserve consideration.

Collaborate, be aware your community needs to change certain traditions, protest against waste and make a more conscious and truly happy home.

Rosita Fonteles (via email)

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Re the row over the England and Scotland teams wearing poppies at their fixture on November 11: why hold a football match on Remembrance Day anyway?

It should be a time to remember our fallen, not a day for tawdry sporting fixtures!

John Eoin Douglas (via email)

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The new cap on benefits set to be introduced next week will lead to a ten-fold increase in the number of Scottish families having their benefits limited over the next four years. It is estimated more than 11,000 families across Scotland will have their benefits capped by 2020.

Today’s UK Government statistics reveal children are most affected by the benefits cap being imposed, with 19 out of 20 families hit containing young dependents. The majority of the families affected are not able to work due to illness, disability or caring responsibilities according to the Government’s own rigorous tests.

The Church of Scotland, the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church believe the new benefit cap is manifestly unfair.

The benefit cap is the limit placed on the total amount of benefits a family can receive. It is currently set at £26,000 per year because those who need such high levels of benefit they tend to live in places where high rents drive up claims for Housing Benefit.

The amount families can receive in benefits across the rest of the UK will be limited to £20,000.

About 11,000 Scottish families, almost all with children, face being affected by the new benefit cap. We know, from our experience on the ground and the UK Government’s own research that the benefit cap drives people into rent arrears, debt and hunger.

As always those who will bear the heaviest burden through this cap will be those who are least able to suffer it. By deciding to further restrict benefits the Government is deciding to punish hundreds of children because their parents cannot find work through illness or because of family circumstances.

We cannot tackle poverty by making people poorer and we cannot leave families without enough to meet their basic needs.

Rev Dr Richard Frazer (Convener of the Church of Scotland’s Church and Society Council)

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We’re calling on your readers to help us to harness the power of the beard to take on bowel cancer this Christmas.

If you’re willing to Go grizzly throughout December, dye or decorate your existing face fur or hold a ‘beardy’ event in the office or local area over the festive period, then please join our hairy band of brothers taking on bowel cancer beard by beard.

Beating Bowel Cancer’s Decembeard campaign asks men to grow or decorate their beard to raise funds for the charity. This will help us to support bowel cancer patients and to raise awareness of the disease, its symptoms and the need for early diagnosis.

It’s is a fun, festive campaign in aid of a serious cause. Bowel cancer is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer. Each year in the UK, more than 40,000 people are diagnosed with the disease–- and 16,000 each year die from it. But it doesn’t have to be that way because 90 per cent of those diagnosed at an early stage can be successfully treated.

Over the last five years thousands of you have supported the campaign and we are so grateful to you. The awareness it has raised has undoubtedly saved lives and the funds raised for the charity have enabled us to provide support services to a great many bowel cancer patients and their families.

But thousands more people are diagnosed each year, so the charity is once again asking local men to become a Decembeard champion to help us to continue to take on bowel cancer.

Please sign up at decembeard.org or check it out at on twitter @decembeard_uk

Charlotte Dawson (Head Nurse for Beating Bowel Cancer’s Helpline)