Butterflies snowstorm

I’ve just come back from a trip to Boston in Lincolnshire and on my way around the area I saw huge fields, some over a hundred acres full of cabbage, kale, sprouts etc. But you know what I didn’t see, many cabbage white butterflies. The gardening media tell us to go round squidging the eggs and pick off the caterpillars and don’t spray. I can’t see the farmers doing that with the amount that they grow. But I would like to know what they spray on the crops. You can see the tractors and the enormous spray booms going up and down the rows. Puts you off buying vegetables doesn’t it? I grow my vegetables organicly. If they did that they would be out of business.

Ken Tomlinson

Sheffield, S9

Toilet query for trains

Whilst your readers seem unlikely to agree on Brexit, I wonder if they can achieve a consensus on the burning question of our times:

Why do modern on-train toilets require the operation of two buttons to close and lock the door but only one to unlock and open it?

John Eoin Douglas

Spey Terrace, Edinburgh, EH7

Kestrel such a lovely bird

I enjoyed your full-page article on persecuted Peak District hen harriers in today’s Star. It reminds me of a recent experience of spending time with a rescued bird of prey as part of a project run by Wild at Heart, a Sheffield Wildlife group.

I put a long leather glove on to my left hand and lower arm and my companion, a young American kestrel, was placed on it and tied with a length of string to prevent him flying away.

He seemed quite content to be with me, despite the nearby presence of a large eagle who was more than capable of making a meal of him. I tenderly stroked his breast and wings, and walked gently away from the eagle to reduce his anxiety. His striking markings surprisingly blended with my red tartan shirt.

A few children were passing by after finishing school for the day and one of them posed for a photo with him. When it came time to leave, I didn’t want to give him back! Such a lovely bird.

John C Fowler

Leverton Gardens, S11

Ring any bells

First of all Veronica, you are wrong. Yes there are things we can do to help limit migration from the EU, but technically Brussels still pulls the strings. I agree that you have not actively advocated uncontrolled immigration but supporting our membership of the EU equates to the same thing.

Secondly, you mentioned that the Lisbon and Maastricht treaty were approved by our Parliament, the sovereign body of the British people. Again the hypocrisy here is sounding out like a trumpet. You endorse our parliamentary sovereignty when the argument calls for it, but quite happily support the European project that takes huge parts of our sovereignty away from Westminster.

And finally you talk of a second vote with the option to remain. This sounds very familiar. Could the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, or to be more specific, “referendums “ be what I am referring to. Didn’t the Irish get a vote? They rejected what the establishment wanted so were asked to vote again. Not surprisingly when the vote was reversed, the establishment accepted the decision. Ring any bells Veronica? Now, as I said, well before the referendum, I was prepared to accept the result if we had voted to remain. I have that much self respect and a back bone. It’s a pity others do not. Now, I stick by this principle. However, if we do hold another and the result is to remain, then I say “if ya can’t beat em, join em”. We shall just have to hold another as that is what happened with the first. The losing side can’t call the shots without expecting backlash. And at the end of the day, WE are a country with our own parliament. The EU is a “parliament” without a country.

Matthew Hobson

Wincobank

What does this mean?

A letter today, (July 27), explains that one of the functions of the Lord Mayor is ‘to act as the conscience of the council’. Fair enough but what does this mean?

I would suggest the charge laid on the Lord Mayor by this provision is to ensure that the council acts in a fit and proper manner in the discharge of its duties and responsibilities, although what such a manner may be you might feel is open to debate.

What I cannot see is how using their position to attack a foreign head of state because they personally dislike his politics forms part of the Lord Mayor’s civic duty. I have no background in either local government or the law but the idea that the mayor is under a legal duty to state their opposition to politicians anywhere in the world of whose policies they disapprove does seem rather odd. Perhaps this is putting the constitution to which your correspondent refers under rather more strain than it was ever intended to bear.

Stephen Crowther

Greystones

Tiger a class act...NOT!

A group of young school kids at the Open watching Tiger Woods, waiting for for an autograph. What’s he do? Barges past them giving them the brush off.

Would it have hurt to give up two minutes of his time and make the kids day?

What a class act.

Jayne Grayson

Sheffield, S35

Nice work if you can get it

I see the taxpayers funds for the monarchy to pay for official duties and other expenditure has risen from £42.8 million to £45.7 million.

Nice work if you can get it, but the chances are you won’t. Keep dreaming, and paying of course.

EB Warris

Sheffield, S14

‘Destructive’ cycling event

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers of this year’s Park Hill cycling moto-cross for destroying a normally perfectly pleasant Saturday morning and afternoon.

David Lowe

Bernard Street, S2