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Heritage guardians set dreadful example

THE discovery of prehistoric gold-working on the King’s Wood Gate building site in Monmouth – with a precious metal crucible half full of gold – is the latest blow to Cadw and the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust’s determination not to have archaeologists watching the groundworks during a housing development a stone’s throw away. That development is to be in the next field to the extensive prehistoric remains at Parc Glyndwr. I hope that the latest discoveries will put further pressure on Cadw to see that there is proper archaeological cover during groundworks on other nearby building sites.

Monmouth archaeologists have been in contention with Cadw and the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust for four years now, ever since the Trust decided that there was nothing of interest in the field planned for new housing next to the quite famous prehistoric remains at Parc Glyndwr, Rockfield Road, in Monmouth. But they have been obdurate and now their stance has become even more bizarre, for on their advice Monmouthshire County Council has given outline planning consent for the development to go ahead with no provision for an archaeological watching brief.

Cadw is claiming that the archaeology at Parc Glyndwr does not extend into the adjoining field – as if the prehistoric landscape ended at a modern hedge – that is absolutely ludicrous.

In case Cadw and GGAT were afraid of losing face we have given them every chance to quietly change their stance following every important discovery that we have made at Overmonnow – Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman, but, no, they cannot be wrong, so the danger to any unknown remains continues.

As autocratic guardians of our heritage, Cadw and GGAT are setting an appalling example to the world and one does wonder if they are fit for purpose.

Stephen Clarke

Chairman, Monmouth Archaeological Society

Brexit talks doomed as Labour wants election

So the Brexit talks between the Conservatives and Labour resume this week. I hope they bear fruit because our country needs to leave the EU as soon as possible, but I fear they will not because in truth all the Labour politicians want is a general election.

John Bevan

Llandaff

Let’s try Brexit and see what happens

Welsh voters will be justified in wondering whether Parliament’s failure to deliver Brexit is down to conspiracy or just bungling incompetence. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

After all, it was LibDem, Labour, Conservative and Green MPs who in gay abandon voted to have a referendum on Brexit in 2016 even though a Press Association survey of the time revealed that 480 out of the 650 MPs were pro-EU. So why did they give us a choice? Perhaps they thought we would do as we were told by big business and the political establishment, just as we had done in 1975. If they had supposed for one second that we would vote to leave the EU, they wouldn’t have given us a say, let alone promise to carry out whatever we decided.

So perhaps the last three years of dithering, defeats, grandstanding and botched proposals, accompanied by non-stop EU flag-waving and 24-hour bad news courtesy of Project Fear Mark 2 are all part of a cunning plan orchestrated by the powers that be to convince the public that leaving the EU is too difficult, that our quest for independence is just not worth the bother and that Brexit is a failure even though we haven’t actually experienced being outside the EU yet.

The only way to settle the nationwide argument about Brexit is to suck it and see. The nation has experienced 46 years of EU membership and decided in 2016 to try something new. What of it? Nothing lasts forever. And there’s no point in another referendum until we have experienced life outside the EU for a few years to see if Brexit works. If it doesn’t, then we can decide to apply to re-join the EU but we need to experience a “clean- break” Brexit first before we can make another judgement.

Trying Brexit is logical, it’s democratic and it’s the British way of doing things; we vote, we experience the consequences of how we voted and then we vote again in the light of our experience. It is imperative that this simple but precious process is protected against the machinations of Brussels, the political establishment and big business by ensuring that the will of the people’s vote of 2016 prevails, whether it be for good or ill.

David Green

www.liberalBrexiteers.com, Southport

End barbaric practice of shooting game birds

The practice of shooting game birds continues in Wales despite the enormous suffering it causes.

In Wales, for example, about two million pheasants are reared each year for shooting – not in some kind of “natural” or wild situation, as some imagine, but artificially, in industrial numbers. About 45% of these will never reach the guns, dying instead of predation, disease and accident, mostly after release. The birds are naive and have little defence. About 900,000 reared pheasants will die this way each year in Wales.

Of those pheasants that survive long enough to be exposed to guns and are hit over 40% are likely to be injured or crippled rather than dying quickly, as many studies around the world now show. In Wales each year this amounts to at least 300,000 birds each year suffering such injury. Their suffering, shock and confusion are only to be imagined.

As is the suffering of the wildlife so often snared and culled by shooting operations to protect the pheasants reared. Reared in such concentrations that they inevitably attract predators, of course.

Where’s the law in this, some might ask? Pheasants as “kept” animals on paper have some “protection” under the Animal Welfare Act before release from their pens (eg into local woodland). But rearing operations are almost never inspected. And, after release, the pheasants are now (bizarrely) treated as if they were wildlife and have no legal coverage whatsoever, under the Animal Welfare Act or anything else.

Most animals reared for food (which is what the shooting industry claims) are given some protection too by other laws which seek to ensure welfare at slaughter, for example, requiring that animals are pre-stunned before killing. But the pheasants (and other “game birds”) are exempt from any such protection. That would, after all, preclude their maiming and killing for “sport”.

The suffering caused throughout is enormous but denied and ignored. As if the short-term “pleasures” of those shooting and the money this generates justifies it. It does not.

It is about time such barbarities ended throughout Wales.

David Grimsell

Ceredigion

Saturday’s paper a thoroughly good read

Cracking edition of this paper last Saturday – and it has stirred me to comment on three of the subjects raised.

Firstly there is the letter from Huw Beynon, in which he appeals for other examples of how Welsh is so descriptive when describing the natural world. Well, here are two of my favourites: “pili pala” (pali) for butterfly; and what could be more apt than “cranc” for crab!

Then there was the letter of Mrs EH Prankerd showing the similarities between Welsh and Breton. That reminds me of my first voyage to the West Indies (to teach) in 1964 on board the French ship “Flandre” sailing from Southampton. Two days’ out my struggles with English and French broke down and much to the surprise of our waiter I ordered my whole dinner in Welsh! After a very puzzled “Comment?” I explained and he smiled and said “Ah, Pays de Galles.” Then about an hour later he returned with the ship’s purser, a Breton-speaking Breton. After a careful conversation in our mother tongues – not a word of French or English said – I was presented with a special pass with which I could go anywhere I wanted to on the ship, including first class.

And then the article about attacks on teachers, which took me back to my first teaching job in rural Essex in 1960. A fourth-year boy, bigger than his classmates (and actually bigger than me) and quite a bully, decided one day to “take me on”. This was when I was alone in the classroom. He came at me from behind, arms flailing and fists bunched... and came to a dead stop about six inches away from me. His woollen jumper had got caught on the door handle of my store room! I put my fist against his nose and smiled at him and then pulled my fist back as if I was taking aim – and then I had to stop because like all bullies he was after all a coward. Trapped as he was, two tears ran down his cheeks. “Foolish boy,” I said (shades of Dad’s Army) “you didn’t think this through, did you? Now go home and behave yourself in future.” And he did. I never had any more problems with him – and neither did his classmates!

Clem Thomas

Llanelli