ALISON Rowat asks if we are “confused, alarmed, unsure”? (“As stage is set for our summer of discontent, how will it end”, The Herald, June 21).

She mentions the events of 9/11, 1958, 2011 and the protests that are happening at present.

My own experience of riots was in 1981 when I had enrolled for a Practical Philosophy course in Liverpool. News on the radio warned that rioting had started in Toxteth, with fire and flying flagstones involved, and saying that people should stay away.

Over a week in July it became quite nasty but nothing was going to stop me from attending the course. I had paid the fee.

The drive to Liverpool involved passing Toxteth, where smoke and flames were visible and there was quite a police presence but we were allowed through.

The theme for the course was apt: how to control your own space and manage your immediate world, mentally and physically; and how to philosophise practically.

Back at home, my husband asked if I had managed to get through to the city without trouble and I said: “Yes, just a bit of smoke and some shouting.”

I didn’t elaborate as it would have worried him, and, after all, I was now controlling my own space; or at least I was learning how to do so.

The course lasted for several weeks and has proved useful throughout life.

So, are we confused, alarmed, unsure? Rather, I would go with Alison Rowat’s last paragraph, when she writes: “know where you are headed and have a say”.

Always remembering to keep a weather eye open, of course.

Thelma Edwards,

Old Comrades Hall,

Hume,

Kelso.