It’s no ball watching cricket

WHEN you go to Wimbledon to watch the tennis, you can take in a bottle of wine, you queue for five minutes maximum for as much drink as you want and, treated like adults, you spend money.

Last Friday, we went to Headingley to watch the cricket... and, oh dear.

The ground is £6m in debt and yet Yorkshire County Cricket Club closed the bars for two hours over the lunch-break.

We left the ground (the queues for drinks were taking up to an hour to get served) and went to the Arc, which was full of cricket watchers who could well have been spending money in the ground – if somebody had have employed enough people to serve and/or kept the bars open.

It was, I’m afraid to say, grossly inept and whoever was in charge of this fiasco should be given the boot right now.

The security staff didn’t know what was going on but they did know that the huge queues were causing health and safety issues as well as breeding lots of loathing on the terraces.

We reckoned that we would have missed two hours cricket had we have queued when we wanted a beer.

So we can’t take in drinks, we can’t buy drinks, we can’t build beer-glass-snakes, we can’t bounce a beach ball, we can’t buy more than four beers at a time; next year, maybe YCCC should just ban spectators altogether and make their life easier.

I spent £65 on a ticket to be treated like a naughty child who wasn’t to be trusted to enjoy his day.

I will not be returning.

History plea for hospital

From: Edward Archer, Hope Street, Lanark.

IT was with some concern that I learned from my friends in Pontefract that the demolition of the old hospital at Pontefract is about to take place without provision for archaeological investigation.

The reason why this is of important is that the hospital was built on the site of an important Dominican/Blackfriars monastery and an old medieval hermitage.

I am very familiar with both sites. First of all, I took part in Ken Wilson’s excavation, in 1963, of part of the Blackfriars’ monastery, and last year I revisited the hermitage with the Wakefield Archaeological Society.

Historically and archaeologically, both places are of considerable interest and an important component of the story of Pontefract in the Middle Ages.

Unfortunately, this view is not always shared by either local planners, health trusts or developers, but I hope that in this instance all will work closely with the archaeological fraternity to record any parts of the buildings that might be revealed during the creation of the new hospital facilities. This will be much more useful than the desktop survey that has been recently undertaken.

I know that this would be the wish of my father, JR Archer, who was chairman of the Pontefract Hospital management board in the 1960s, and my grandfather, GW Blomfield, who played an important part in setting up the original Pontefract hospital, which was known as the Dispensary.

Finally, it is important to realise that the monks in the Middle Ages played a vital part in developing medical science.

For that reason alone, I hope that opportunity is given for proper archaeological research and that the fruits of this research can be displayed in the new hospital.

Good reason to quit EU

From: D Wood, Thorntree Lane, Goole.

HAVING read “UK barred from deporting criminals” (Yorkshire Post, June 29), this is surely yet another good reason for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Yet again, we have non-elected foreign “judges” (I use the term very loosely), being allowed to overrule British law.

In this case, two Somali illegal immigrants, whose crimes include burglary, robbery, threats to kill and drug dealing, are not allowed to be deported because they may be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment if they are returned to their own country.

What about the people of this country who were subjected to inhuman, degrading and violent treatment by these to despicable creatures, do they not have any rights?

It appears that in Britain no law-abiding person has any rights, only criminals, terrorists, and the dregs of society.

It is now time our weak political leaders woke up and put Britain and its people first – scrap the Human Rights Act and get us out of the worthless and very costly EU.

In praise of John Luckett

From: Michael Meadowcroft, Chair of Trustees, The Leeds Library, Waterloo Lane, Leeds.

I WANT to add an additional dimension to your excellent obituary of John Luckett, librarian and public speaker (Yorkshire Post, July 2).

John was a longtime and active member of The Leeds Library, the subscription library which has been at 18 Commercial Street for more than 200 years.

The library’s combination of history and topicality admirably suited John’s convivial personality and his passion for libraries.

He always responded to requests for help in promoting or developing the library and his cheerful presence and professional skills will be much missed.