I NOTED with interest your feature ‘Dead brilliant’ in The Herald on Sunday (November 18) and also the item on Saturday ‘Appeal to restore ancient grave of kidnapped heiress.’

These items were of particular interest to me on two counts.

Firstly, as secretary of Logie Old Graveyard Group, I was delighted to read that Logie Old Kirkyard was listed as one of the six ‘must see’ sites.

Since 2007, a team of volunteers has worked there to ensure its long term preservation and has had the necessary structural repairs to the ruin and watch hut completed to the highest standards.

We have succeeded and have created a valuable and interesting historic site well worth a visit. We were thrilled to be highly commended in the Andrew Lloyd Webber angel awards last year. Our web site at www.logieogg.com will provide more information.

The success of our project has motivated many other groups to get involved with their site, including Kippen which featured in the article on Friday.

Around Stirling there are 18 rural sites including Logie and Kippen which are all in need of some TLC. As your article stated, there is currently a great deal of interest in these sites and the safety of visitors is paramount. To that end, a new group ‘Friends of Stirlingshire’s historic graveyards’ has been constituted with the aim of securing funding to have all the rural sites brought up to a well presented and safe standard.

It is hoped that if sufficient funding can be secured and the work can be completed, a ‘graveyard trail’ could be established around country. There is a wealth of Scottish history in these sites which could be lost if nothing is done to preserve them.

Elaine A Young

Secretary of Logie Old Graveyard Group and Treasurer of the Friends

Causewayhead, Stirling

Great to read Sandra Dick’s New Focus piece on the way historic graveyards are fuelling Scotland’s tourist boom (Herald on Sunday, November 18).

One of the earliest and most impressive carved headstones is in the graveyard of Holy Rude kirk beside Stirling Castle. Carved in 1634 by local stonemason John Service to mark the grave of his father, who was also a stonemason, the complex carving on this richly decorated gravestone has recently been shown to copy the illustrations from one of the most influential of English emblem books, Francis Quarles’s Emblemes (London, 1634).

The problem of how this carving could have copied emblems from a book which was only published a year later than the gravestone itself led me to write a chapter on early Scottish gravestones, of which there are more than a dozen that copy emblems from Quarles, plus several of the earliest surviving gravestones in the USA. Readers can find these all illustrated and discussed in my book, Emblems in Scotland: Motifs and Meanings which has just been published by Brill (Leiden, 2018).

Stirling Castle, and its magnificently refurbished royal palace, is now among the top two or three most visited historic sites in Scotland. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a few of those visiting tourists could be guided to step down into the graveyard, just beside the Castle car park, in order to see one of the most remarkable and influential carved gravestones, not only in Scotland but arguably in the whole of the UK.

For a taste of just how remarkable this carving is, Herald readers might just like to compare my illustration of how the departing soul of the deceased stonemason rises heavenwards, in the emblem copied from Quarles, above his mortal remains which are carved in four niches showing hands, feet and skull, in the base stone on which the whole tombstone rests.

Michael Bath

Balfron

THE INS AND OUTS OF BREXIT

While politicians, economists, representatives of business and industry, and know-it-all commentators argue and pontificate on the pros and cons of EU membership, Brexit, and hard or soft exit deals, do any of them consider and articulate what is in the best interest of PEOPLE living in these two Brit-Irish Isles? Are they interested at all in the common good? Or are they fixated in their ideologies, whether leftist, rightist, socialist, capitalist, unionist or nationalist?

People’s basic physical needs are food, clothing, shelter and warmth. Millions of people in these two supposedly wealthy countries are living in poverty. Even if in employment, they cannot afford adequate food, clothing, housing and fuel.

Fifty years ago the average, and even below average, earnings of one breadwinner could support a family. A man would be ashamed if his wife had to go out to work to supplement his earnings. Today, two average incomes are barely adequate.

Fifty years ago a new bungalow could be bought for one year’s good professional salary, say £2,400. Today, inflation as measured by the Retail Price Index has risen by a factor of almost 18. The cost of a new bungalow should therefore be about £43,000. The equivalent professional salary today, say £50,000, might pay for the actual building cost of a new bungalow but the selling price of land, whether inherited or deliberately land-banked, and the politically contrived housing shortage have raised the purchase price of a house to several multiples of the building cost. The average cost of a house in the UK today is £300,000.

This is the legacy of governance by politicians of all shades and ideologies.

If it comes to pass, a catastrophic financial and economic exit from the EU may be the painful but necessary catalyst to creating a socio-economic system focused on the well-being of PEOPLE, and the ENVIRONMENT, natural and built, in which people live.

Dennis Golden

Strabane, Northern Ireland

Anent the current Brexit bourach, Richard Leonard’s contribution was particularly enlightening, though not in the way he intended. We all know that he is an expert in gaffes and contradicting himself, but this piece was a prize!

He points out very firmly that Labour policy demands that any deal “delivers for all regions and nations of the UK”, and the current deal is unacceptable as it does not “deliver for Scotland”.

Good – seems as if, for once, he is coming on-side. But a few paragraphs on, he claims that the SNP’s view that deal is unacceptable for Scotland is “an exercise in cynical political posturing” and then “ an excuse to play fast and loose on this issue”.

Right then. The conclusion must be that Labour rejecting the deal is a matter of principle to protect Scotland, but the SNP doing exactly that is pure self-serving opportunism. Good to learn which party holds the moral high ground!

P Davidson,

Falkirk

I believe that under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, before any country can sign up to any trading/tariff agreement, it must have clear economic borders with custom controls. Under the Good Friday Agreement, since both Northern and Southern Ireland were part of the same trading bloc (EU) there is no problem. However, if Northern Ireland, along with the rest of the UK is forced out of the EU, until such times as a border with custom controls is in place between these two separate nations, Britain is unable to complete any new trading agreement with any other nation.

Surely the Department of Trade Officials and the relevant Government Ministers must know this. Why has this been ignored and so why was this not made clear to the electorate before a referendum? Why is it not even been made public during the alleged Brexit negotiations? The EU clearly understand the position and that is why it states that Northern Ireland must remain in the customs union indefinitely. Alternatively customs control must be set up between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK

The two major political parties, Tories and labour, with all of their sub-divisions, must accept that the people of the UK have three simple choices:

1 Vote for a united Ireland.

2 Remain in the EU.

3 Crash out of the EU, and be cast adrift with no chance of completing trading agreements unless with rogue states.

Ron Wynton

Fortrose

Ross-shire

FOOD AND THE ENVIRONMENT

I am grateful to Vicky Allan for starting a conversation about caring for our planet (Voice, November 18).

There are many choices that we all make about what we buy and how we plan our lives. The implications of these choices spread through a network of connections, as she describes referring to growing and using palm oil.

A news item recently seems to have been swamped by statements on Brexit. On November 15, the government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published a report recommending that the number of sheep and cattle in the UK should be reduced by between one-fifth and half to help combat climate change.

To make this happen many of us will be encouraged to eat less red meat. Good for our health as well as the planet. We do not need to be totally vegetarian, although a meat-free day or two each week could help.

The report foresees an increase in the number of pigs and chickens because these produce less methane. Bacon and eggs anyone?

Johanna Carrie

Edinburgh

In her latest restaurant review, Joanna Blythman writes "the meat is cooked to collapse" (Scottish Life magazine, November 18).

As she is talking about pork belly, she may be interested to know that some pigs literally do collapse in terror while waiting their turn in the slaughterhouse. This has been confirmed by vets.

The documentary films "Earthlings" and "Land of Hope and Glory" should be watched not just by readers who choose to consume animal flesh, but also Ms Blythman.

In consuming animals, she and others have a moral obligation to witness exactly how animals come to be on her plate.

Sandra Busell

Edinburgh

NOT SUCH A SMART MOVE

The Smart Meters fiasco is behind schedule and promised savings of £26 a year might only be £11 and there are concerns that instead of reducing energy bills they will increase. Add the difficulty of changing supplier and technical problems and people will be glad that installing a not-so-smart meter is NOT compulsory.

The estimated cost to the consumer will be nearer £20 billion than £11 billion.

This whole expensive exercise is a cover-up because the government knows, but blatantly denies, that there will be an electricity shortage as coal, gas and nuclear power stations are close to be replaced by more wind turbines which produce part-time electricity and solar which contributes little of any consequence.

These closures are to cut the UK's CO2 emissions as dictated by the Climate Change Act 2008 despite the UK only having 1.3 per cent of global emissions. Time to kill off the Climate Change Act 2008 and spend the money on the NHS, education and reducing energy bills.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow

FIREWORKS: A SIMPLE SOLUTION

The Scottish Government does not need to waste more public money on yet another consultation on fireworks (Tighter rules on firework dangers? Herald on Sunday, November 18).

The solution is very simple. Ban the retail sale and ownership of fireworks and restrict their use to advertised public displays carried out by competent licensed operators.

This would stop antisocial behaviour involving fireworks, greatly reduce injures and damage caused by fireworks and allow pet owners and people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to avoid firework displays.

John F Robins

Animal Concern Advice Line

THE FULL PICTURE

The Bible John picture keeps appearing in The Herald, and now The Herald on Sunday (In Cold Blood, November 18) and is always wrongly described as a “photofit”.

The image was created by my late father G W Lennox Paterson, using a fairly pioneering technique, and was essentially a colour portrait in gouache to be used in identification and for posters. He worked with CID officers and various witnesses (of many professions) from in and around the Barrowland Ballroom, to work up a likeness which has unfortunately never been able to be tested.

I clearly remember that he relished the experience!

Please refer to it in future as “an artist’s impression”.

Simon Paterson

Glasgow

AND FINALLY ...

Re Ron McKay's Diary (November 18), I am 66, bald, not particularly wealthy and look like a shrivelled testicle that's had a good shave and have now been given the opportunity to go to a conference in December.

So what are my chances of of emulating American 2020 Presidential hopeful John McAfee ?

George Dale

Beith