Arran Banner Letters – week 12, 2025

Contributions welcomed by Whiting Bay Memories group

Sir,

The members of Whiting Bay Memories group would like to thanks all those who came to our recent meeting to help launch our latest project - 100 Years of Whiting Bay.

It was good to hear your memories of the village across the decades and to be given information about some of the village houses, buildings and families.

We hope you enjoyed looking at our two village maps of 1926 and the present day, and the sample of the many beautiful Stitched Stories, which will be included in the 100 Years of the Village Hall banner.

This is very much a community project and all your contributions are welcome. We hold regular drop-in sessions on most Mondays from 11am-1pm in the Whiting Bay Village Hall (the lesser hall at the back). Our next drop-in date will be Monday April 14.

Please come along – you will receive a warm welcome!

Yours,

Barbara I’Anson,

Whiting Bay.

Previous and ongoing issues at King’s Cross

Sir,

Having read the headline story in last week’s Banner I discovered that I lived in “a beauty spot” that was under threat, real or imagined, from industrialisation - whatever that means. And also that there is a group called Friends of King’s Cross. I’m always learning.

Having had both property and land here for over 50 years it may be worthwhile to remember previous and ongoing issues: no more building according to the local plan; loss of our shop and telephone box; loss of right of ways, in one of which stands an electricity transformer now in a garden where children play; over 40 years of effort spent in attempting to get the power lines resituated.

A continuing saga no doubt, almost as bad as our new ferry.

Yours,

Wilma Aitken,

King’s Cross

Horse lives matter

Sir,

It is truly shameful that two more horses were killed at the Cheltenham Festival last week, Springwell Bay and Corbetts Cross. Their tragic deaths take the death toll of this ruthless event up to 78 horses killed since 2000. That is at least one horse killed at this ‘festival’ every year it has taken place for the past 25 years.

Watching horses running for their lives on a course designed to push them to their limits is not ‘fun’, it is animal cruelty. Horses are the only animals who can be publicly beaten for entertainment – even though the use of the whip undeniably causes the horses pain and anguish.

The cruelty goes far beyond Cheltenham. A total of 214 horses were killed as a result of racing on British racecourses in 2024, and 598 horses with racing industry passports were sent to slaughter.

These statistics highlight the inherent treatment of horses within the racing industry – not as sentient animals, but as commodities who exist to generate profits for humans. Behind each one of those statistics was an individual, who did not want to die.

It’s time this barbaric excuse for a ‘sport’ was consigned to the history books where it belongs.

Yours,

Nina Copleston-Hawkens,

Animal Aid.