Dear Editor,
There’s been a lot of talk lately about having pride in our community, and many differing views on how best to express that pride.
I’ve lived here for decades and the actions of some people in recent weeks have made me question the pride I did have in my town.
Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but as a starting point I’d love it if people would stop vandalising our town in the dead of night.
The recent spate of red crosses illegally sprayed onto mini-roundabouts, for example: not only were they illegal, they also looked completely naff, leaving long trails of red paint on the road itself.
I wonder if the people responsible are the same people who’ve been (also illegally) attaching flags to lampposts. I suppose we’ll never know, because that, curiously, mostly seems to be happening overnight, too. We’ll overlook the fact that a fair number of the union flags are upside down.
I was quite sure that this would all fizzle out soon enough, but then this weekend I passed a house in our town which had also been spray-painted with red crosses.
If you’re still reading this letter, I’d like you to imagine how you would feel it that were your house. I hope the people who committed this act of intimidation are ashamed of themselves.
Until recently, I always thought that we Shildon folk prided ourselves in caring for our community and treating each other with respect. Lately, I wonder.
In fact, the actions of these faceless “patriots” mean that I no longer feel safe putting my name next to this letter and have asked for it to be published anonymously.
Yours sincerely,
Name and address supplied
Shildon & District's local community newspaper.
