I AM a resident of Cumbernauld, and I have lived here happily for more than 40 years. It is possible to find good and bad everywhere, and we can choose to focus on either. However, my reason for writing is to take issue with a statement made in The Long Letter on May 28: “Many in the town would agree that the best thing that could happen to Cumbernauld town centre is for a nuclear weapon to be dropped on it”.

The letter’s author admits that the statement is “a bit extreme”, but if this were to happen, there would be no “clean sheet”, as he suggests, since none of us would exist – indeed all life in a large part of the west of Scotland would be wiped out.

Last year I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Peace Memorial Park, and I was truly shocked by the graphic accounts of the suffering and destruction the nuclear bomb inflicted on the innocent inhabitants of that city. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly, with the final death toll calculated to be 135,000. Many who did survive suffered from terrible long-term effects.

I believe that many people do not really appreciate what the true impact of a nuclear explosion would be, and the use of statements such as this really do not help. Scotland has made it clear that it does not wish to be the home of these dreadful weapons, and once we are independent we will be in a position to take action for their removal from our shores, and so send a strong message internationally that these weapons should no longer be tolerated.

Carol Acutt
Cumbernauld

I AM writing in response to Julia Pannell’s letter on Wednesday. I read her letter with a growing sense of despair and some anger. I think for someone to claim to support the SNP and Scottish independence and then vote for the Brexit Party in a UK election is appalling.

Julia has concerns about the EU, as do a lot of us – but what can we achieve by being outside it? And who would we trade with? I thought we were all opposed to chlorinated Trump chicken? It is obvious to everyone apart from the right-wing creatures in the Tory and Brexit parties that Brexit will be a disaster for all parts of the UK and especially Scotland. We must secure indy first, surely, then we can discuss other matters, and anyway Scotland has already voted to stay in the EU, both in the 2016 referendum and again last week in the EU elections.

Once the voters of England get their way and drag us all out of the EU, what does Julia believe will happen? That the UK government will suddenly turn into a reasonable negotiator regarding Scotland because we stood back and did nothing to stop their attempts to realise their pathetic English imperial fantasies?

J Kirk
Dumfries

SADDENED to hear that Julia Pannell, a member of the SNP, voted for a party other than the SNP. What really saddened was that it was for a party with no policies and a man who is nothing more than a wrecker who invokes the worst kind of instincts in some people.

Why not just not vote, rather than vote against your own people?

We all have views on the EU, good or bad, but for me I could never turn my back on my own, even when we disagree. Thankfully the SNP won the majority vote, which keeps us on track for the days ahead. But we all have decisions to make and must live by them. Julia, I trust you are now firmly back in the fold for the fight.

Bryan Auchterlonie
Perthshire

CUTTING through the waffle of Julia Pannell’s long letter: she thinks Louis Stedman-Bryce is better able to represent Scotland’s interests than Alyn Smith and does not want EU interference in domestic affairs because the EU does not interfere in domestic affairs enough. Not a word about job losses, company failures, health staff shortages, travel and transport disruption, security, safety or family life.

Ian Richmond
Dumfries and Galloway

RICHARD Gault’s photo of the Dakota (Picture of the Day, May 30), brings back many memories.

It is, in fact, a Douglas DC3, known by the military in the USA as the C47. We got to know it as the Dakota after the RAF bought and named it so. It is a quite remarkable aircraft, in that it has been in continuous service, somewhere in the world, for 84 years! It certainly stands alone in terms of longevity.

I clearly remember seeing them towing gliders on their way to to support the D-Day landings, though I didn’t know then, either what they were called, or where they were going. Ten years later I started an apprenticeship with British European Airways (later amalgamating with BOAC to create the BA we know today), and was thrilled to see them in service there as airliners! Primitive compared with today’s standards of course.

So, Richard’s photo takes me back to the days when I worked on these planes, these Dakotas, and on Vikings and Yorks too. The remarkable York being the commercial version and last vestige of the Lancaster bomber.

Christopher Bruce
Taynuilt