Why Notre-Dame cathedral fire is a reminder of shared values – Yorkshire Post letters

THE sadness of the fire at Notre-Dame cathedral is far reaching (The Yorkshire Post, April 16).

It not only struck at the heart of France as a nation but reminds us all, believers or not, what Christianity means in today’s society and in world architecture.

Would there have been such scenes of distress, tears, silence, if an empty modern day office building had been razed to the ground?

For an architect who has worked on religious buildings,
of whatever faith, there is a tangible feeling of added responsibility and respect to preserve and enhance a holy structure which may not be quite so acute with any other building, young or old.

As Notre-Dame burned, the images were profoundly moving and distressing in equal measure. There was no film sound track to create an atmosphere, the history and the building’s iconic status were its script.

As with St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and The Glasgow School of Art, Notre-Dame will be rebuilt to its former glory, with the stone carapace that still stands, bearing witness, and the scars, of such a devastating fire.

Whilst sprinkler systems and heat and smoke detection can form part of its re-birth, it is the inherent witness that the building has served for 850
years that will ensure its resurrection and, in so doing, potentially influence the 
healing of an increasingly divided world.

Disgraced by Assange slur

From: Dai Woosnam, Woodrow Park, Scartho, Grimsby.

DISTRICT judge Michael Snow should be ashamed for calling Julian Assange a “narcissist”. Whatever happened to judicial impartiality? And I suggest that far more shameful than our politicians’ collective loss of nerve over Brexit has been their total inability to speak up for a brave man over seven years, whilst he has been incarcerated in conditions far worse than a child murderer in a British jail. Conditions to send you totally mad. Now it is clear that the poor fellow’s mental health has cracked. And we as a nation are being America’s poodle again, and jumping as high as they tell us. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, you are a disgrace.

No way to cut pollution

From: Terence Emmingham, Wakefield.

POLITICIANS in Wakefield do nothing to ease lethal air pollution.

Whilst Leeds and London tackle pollution, all politicians, including council leader Peter Box, want is more car parks to encourage people to shop in Wakefield, ignoring the fact that more cars equals more pollution.

Seven million people already die prematurely in the UK due to air pollution. We need free electric buses, and a scheme to eliminate diesel vehicles in city centres. Certainly no more new car parks and regeneration schemes that only lead to more empty shops and costly white elephants.

Football no longer a sport

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

HOW things have changed over the years I have been on this earth. Footballers are paid huge sums and many have little idea how to behave.

They argue with the referee and go face to face with him or the assistant referee.

They hug and kiss each other when they score a goal, they even risk injuring the scorer by jumping in a pile on him.

Spectators have been known to rush onto the pitch to assault opposing payers. The players are not averse to fouling an opponent to stop them scoring. Sleeve and shirt pulling is commonplace.

How can anyone call football a sport? It is becoming a battle ground. Not so in the late 1940s and 50s.

Biased books

From: Mr PL Taylor, Milner Street, Lockwood, Huddersfield.

WHEN I was a schoolboy in the 1950s, my favourite subject was history. The history books at that time glorified the positive aspects of Great Britain and glossed over the less pleasant aspects.

I would describe those history books and their contents as a “shed load” of regurgitated propaganda. Fortunately modern historians write more honestly about the events of the past.

When will we get Sir Dickie?

From: Edward Grainger, Botany Way, Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough.

WHAT is the problem with Dickie Bird’s knighthood?

To many of us cricket followers of England and Yorkshire, the retired umpire has far too long been overlooked for a knighthood (The Yorkshire Post, April 10). Perhaps someone could explain the omission or is the reason that he was born on the wrong side of the tracks, if you know what I mean.

Surely his charity work and financial commitment qualify him as a living Yorkshire legend who is surely more than just Mr Bird?

Icily sceptical

From: Arthur Quarmby, Mill Moor Road, Meltham.

WE are all threatened with doom unless we change our ways and quickly too. However one of the principal threats is a rise in sea levels as ice melts.

Such a rise was going to submerge the Maldives – those tiny islands which exist only inches above sea level. I keep a careful eye on the Maldives. Until I learn that they are gone, I shall continue to treat global warming with a degree of scepticism.