I AGREE wholeheartedly with Dr Keith McKillop (“A doctor in new superhospital but I can’t bring myself to use its name”, Agenda, The Herald, July 29) that giving the new hospital in Govan a royal name is embarrassingly sycophantic and inappropriate for all the reasons he lucidly presents. However names can be changed, especially royal names, which vary in different parts of the country and through the various stages of aristocratic progression. Institutions and ships are regularly re-named. Before the Cunard liner Queen Mary could be launched in 1934 the owners of a much smaller vessel then named Queen Mary agreed to rename their more modest ship.

Changing names is no problem.

The new bridge over the Forth was named after public input. Why not do the same for the renaming of our new hospital? I think “Glasgow Southern General” would suit very well.

Hugh Boyd,

65 Antonine Road, Bearsden.

AS a Queen's Counsel in a state of treason against royalty I write in support of Dr McKillop's attack on our new hospital being given a royal surname. Royalty are everywhere like lice in a dirty house.

When will we see one of these people open a food bank? What use are they except as an advert for unearned lavish greed?

Ian Hamilton QC,

Lochnabeithe,

North Connel, Argyll.

I BEGAN to wonder what Dr Keith McKillop was actually expecting from me as I read his article. I speculated if,

perhaps subconsciously, he really wanted the hospital to be called the Dr McKillop Hospital as he protests at the inclusion of Queen Elizabeth in the new name for the hospital built on the Southern General site? I personally felt the inclusion of the name of our head of state gave the hospital a much-needed advantage in building a fresh international reputation.

If the apparently republican Dr McKillop is so very unhappy with the name of the hospital that he feels the need to share his feelings with me why does he not go and practice elsewhere? He proposes, rather bizarrely I felt, that the title suggests the people of Glasgow should “take life as it comes and accept their subsidiary position”. I found this view confusing as he had previously proudly boasted of his assumed superiority over me in that he holds not only a medical degree but an “honours degree in theology”.

I cannot imagine his purpose in further informing me that “I sacrificed 10 years of my medical career to work in the voluntary sector"“. Well, if Dr McKillop feels so passionately about actively helping the unfortunate in our socially divided society it could hardly have been classed as a sacrifice.

Perhaps Dr McKillop would be happier if the hospital was simply called Hospital Number 1345 as if it were some 1950’s hospital in the former Soviet Union. However I must congratulate him for completely defeating me with his closing statement that he is “ frustrated that once-inclusive social structures are being re-appropriated and incorporated into the machinery of marginalisation”. Surely not a cry for “the good old days”?

Bill Brown

46 Breadie Drive,

Milngavie.