YOU report that the UK Government will fund interim compensation to postmasters wrongly convicted over the Horizon computer system scandal ("Ministers to pay £100,000 compensation to wrongly-convicted postmasters", The Herald, July 23).

While extremely welcome, and far too late, cash will not remedy the damage done to the good folks who were postmasters caught up in this.

Proverbs tells us that “a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches”. The postmasters have been robbed of their good name by a company’s wrongful prosecution.

Let us recognise this with front-page coverage of those on the board at the Post Office at the time, and let us strip them of all honours and employment in the public sector.

David Hamilton, Largs.

ROT AT THE HEART OF FIAT SYSTEM

WHEN you think about it, the untold damage inflicted upon many postmasters as a result of the Post Office’s flawed Horizon software exposes the rot at the heart of our “fiat” currency. Unlike the case of the Northern Bank robbery, where £25 million was physically loaded into the back of a van and spirited away into the night, in the Horizon fiasco no tangible money left any building anywhere.

People were convicted, some sent to prison, all because a computer couldn’t count properly. The computer stole it! Where did it go? Was it simply erased or was it circuitously and invisibly redirected to some other account? Is it sitting in the sunshine somewhere? Did the right people go to jail?

The final act of the tragic comedy is that the money that will be paid to the innocent postmasters in belated compensation will probably have been created by some modern-day Rumpelstiltskin in the Treasury or the Bank of England using Quantitative Easing to create money out of thin air on another computer system. If only the Treasury computer could have a “Horizon” glitch and delete the odd trillion from the UK national debt. (Too late, Rishi Sunak, I thought of it first.)

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

NOWHERE SAFE FROM WIND FARMS

YOU revealed in January that Scotland has an "open door" wind farm policy compared to England, where there have been no wind farms built since 2012. The French energy giant EDF has submitted an application for 12 turbines, eight metres short of the height of Blackpool Tower, 149.5 metres high at Cloich Forest near Peebles. The site is 17 miles from the World Heritage Site of Edinburgh, a mile from the Pentlands Special Landscape Area and a mile from the Upper Tweeddale National Scenic Area. It is the Gateway to the Borders.

The application is to the Energy Consents Unit and ministers. Presumably EDF would not go to all this trouble and expense if it did not think it had a good chance of success. The wind farm would be on the Cloich Hills above the road from Edinburgh to Peebles, one of Scotland's most picturesque tourist routes, also enjoyed by Edinburgh folk for generations. There is a Grade A listed house and notable garden visited by the public which even the Environmental Statement says will have a "medium effect". It seems to me, in developer speak this is notable.

The Scottish Government always says of wind farms, "we will only build them in the right place". If EDF has the confidence to put in this application, forget your designations and listings, nowhere is safe in Scotland.

Celia Hobbs, Penicuik.

SCENARIO FOR FUTURE LOCKDOWNS

NORMAN McNab writes a revealing letter on the inadequacies of wind power (July 23). I would like to add more information on the poor performance of this week's wind generation. At 12.30 on July 22 wind farms spread all over the UK's land and sea were generating a miniscule 35 MW (megawatts), which wouldn't even power 100,000 homes. These wind farms have a theoretical rating of 19,502 MW. Indeed the UK has been similarly becalmed for more than a third of this month so far.

In conditions like this in a 100% renewable future scenario only priority sectors like government and national security would get power. So for the rest of us there would be no electricity, and all electric vans and buses would be forced to stay in their depots.

A future scenario for future lockdowns?

Geoff Moore, Alness.

CHEQUERED HISTORY

REGARDING the correspondence on the origins of the chequered bands on police caps (Letters, July 22 & 23), I read ( or heard) some time ago an interesting explanation of the origin of the chequered band on certain uniform hats.This may only be conjecture, but it has a ring of authenticity.

Apparently in medieval times hats were not sized – instead slots were made at regular intervals around the headband and ribbon threaded through these. As you can imagine this produced a pattern not unlike the chequered band in question. The ribbon was then tied at the back, leaving two strips hanging loose – as in the Glengarry and Balmoral in today's Highland dress.

It was also suggested that this could be the origin of the bow on the inside of men's hats at the back. I would be interested to hear if anyone else had heard of this theory or could supply an alternative explanation.

Jim Butler, Kilwinning.