Parking Eye is profiting from patients’ families
Reading Matt Discombe’s report on private firm Parking Eye, which runs parking at Cardiff hospitals, was a horrible reminder for me of that company’s hostility to patients’ families.
My grandad was sectioned in the dementia mental health ward at Llandough Hospital and I was twice fined £70 for overstaying the permitted 20-minute stay in the parking bay outside the senile dementia ward, within a two-week period, for reasons which were beyond my control.
On the first occasion the hospital had summoned family members to a meeting to discuss my grandfather’s future. I circled the car park twice looking for a free spot, to no avail, so parked outside his ward. I was 10 minutes over the time limit when I returned to my car, as I was talking to a member of the React team after the meeting regarding my grandfather’s follow-ups.
On the second occasion we arrived at the ward to take my grandfather out for a couple of hours. He wet himself before we could leave the hospital and with cleaning and changing clothes, we were 40 minutes inside, 20 minutes over the time limit.
I paid the fines and I appealed on the first occasion, which was rejected. To me, no-one should make money from families visiting sick relatives. The profit motive also means Parking Eye will be less interested in listening to the human story, showing flexibility and waiving fines.
Hayley Perkins
Penarth
Wales is no better off tied to Brussels
So Patrick McGuinness (Western Mail, February 14) thinks Brexit has made Britain a laughing stock.
I would suggest it’s those like Mr McGuinness who want to overturn a democratic decision that make Britain a laughing stock. It is they who have undermined the UK’s negotiating position at every turn.
He lauds Donald Tusk for his stupid comments.
He repeats the fatuous claim that the Leave Campaign promised this or that. He surely knew that as an ad hoc group of people they never claimed to be able to promise anything, other than that Brexit would mean the UK would have more funds available to decide for itself what the priorities should be.
I agree with his comments deriding people who think that Wales could not make its own way in the world and must remain tied to England’s apron-strings. I am not sure how remaining tied to Brussels’ apron-strings would be any better!
Emrys Roberts
Cardiff
Put Prince Philip’s boot on the other foot
Prince Philip will face no charges re his recent car accident. Let’s face it, the same would happen to any other 97-year-old who had an identical accident with William, Kate and Prince George in the other car, wouldn’t it?
Oh! Wait a minute, what are those large pink farmyard animals outside in the sky? I must go out and check.
Tony Pegge
Ystradgynlais
Sack sloppy minister, teachers know best
Here are a few quiz questions for readers.
Which Welsh Government minister writes, in a foreword to a White Paper, “The legislative proposals... reaffirms the principles”? Which minister also writes that each child “...is supported to be capable learners”? Which minister writes “that that” (sic) Abraham Lincoln opined on education and then goes on to miss a crucial word from the late president’s speech, rendering the attribution meaningless?
Sadly, but also disastrously, the culprit is no less than the Welsh Education Minister Kirsty Williams, writing a short introduction to the White Paper that promises ambitious changes to the Welsh education system.
In living memory education in Wales was held up as a shining example of how lives could be transformed. Over the 20 years since devolution Wales has been shown to be failing in virtually every objective test of educational attainment, a fact reflected in the country’s abject economic performance. Our children and their prospective employers deserve much better.
One could argue that the failure of our Education Minister to produce a short document over her own name that is coherent and without error is not important. I disagree, it is sloppy and symbolic of a Welsh Labour government content to see the country languish.
However, if the foreword is bad, it has to be said that it merely sets the tone for the White Paper, which is also littered with literary nonsense but, much worse, looks to cement political ideology even further into an education system already weighed down by dogma.
A solution? Sack a minister who is content to pocket a six-figure salary but who can’t be bothered to check her own work.
Next, hand the future of education in Wales over to the best of our superb heads and teachers – they know what succeeds and should be allowed to bring the best out of our children without the interference of the dead hand of the Welsh Labour Government.
Peter Weavers
Talgarth
Don’t forget excellent Dylan Thomas Theatre
Great to see the guide to things to do in Swansea in Saturday’s Western Mail, but disappointed that in the section relating to Dylan Thomas, the Dylan Thomas Theatre that has been in the Marina for 40 years this year was not mentioned.
With iconic murals, panels relating to Dylan’s time as an actor with Swansea Little Theatre (which runs the theatre), Ceri Richards cartoons, original posters, playbills and letters, a visit is certainly worth combining with the excellent exhibition at the Dylan Thomas Centre close by. Open 10am-2pm, Monday to Friday, for all performances and by appointment- visit www.dylanthomastheatre.org.uk or telephone 01792 473 238.
Stephanie Jefferies
Swansea
Welsh a waste, focus on maths and science
I fully support the teaching of Welsh to those who wish to learn the language, but haven’t things gone a little over the top when it is forced on every pupil, irrespective of their desire to learn it?
When I entered grammar school my Welsh-speaking mother chose French for me. She said it would be more useful in the big wide world. While I am sorry that I was taught the French, but not the Welsh national anthem in school, I ask myself, “have I missed very much?” Other languages I was taught were Latin – of great use in the origin of words – and German. Spending time with families in France and Germany, I found the students I stayed with were dedicated to improving their English.
So what disadvantages do I look back on because I am not fluent in Welsh? I can honestly say, none. My monoglot cousins in Cardiganshire soon appreciated, as the world got smaller, and people moved around a lot more, that they needed to learn English, while the converse was not the case for me. It is a fact that English is used in more countries of the world than any other language. Having travelled in scores of countries worldwide I am well aware that with the English language and US dollars one can travel almost anywhere in the world. Have I ever been sorry while abroad that I did not have Welsh? Yes, in Patagonia. We had a lovely Welsh tea served to us by a lady who spoke Welsh and Spanish but no English. Hanging on the wall behind us was a picture of Castell Coch.
There is a price that our young people are paying for having Welsh forced upon them. Other subjects are suffering because there are only 25 hours in the standard school week. One subject that has suffered dreadfully is mathematics. Half the students I went through school with entered grammar school at 10 and sat O-levels at 14. At A-level there were 12 in the class studying Pure Maths and Applied Maths as separate subjects, and another eight in the class studying Pure and Applied Maths as a single subject. Four boys, that year, went up to Oxbridge at a time when I am reliably informed that the number of students at Oxbridge was a third of the number there today.
What has happened to mathematics and science subjects since those far-off days? In passing it is also indisputable that we sat the exams two years earlier than students today, and that the standard in these subjects is lower now than it was then – should you doubt this, just compare the papers from those times with today.
The recent BBC series Icons declared, by popular vote, mathematician Alan Turing as the top icon of the 20th century. Surely some of the enormous sums spent on teaching Welsh to pupils who will never use it; on putting up bilingual signs everywhere and producing thousands of tons of paper that is immediately binned, would be better spent in raising the standard of education, particularly in science subjects? It is only a brilliant mathematician/scientist who is going to save humanity from its headlong gallop to total destruction.
Ewart Smith
Blackwood
