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'I don't find the flying of flags funny' - Your letters plus two Pictures from the Past

The Flags debate goes on, thoughts on the state of our roads and two Pictures from the Past - Your letters for today

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Supporting image for story: 'I don't find the flying of flags funny' - Your letters plus two Pictures from the Past
nostalgia pic. Penkridge. This picture is a print in the Express & Star picture archive (and was copied for file on February 24, 2016). It has the date stamp of May 6, 1970, which may be publication date. The caption pasted on the back reads: 'Not many villages can boast of having a cobbler. But Penkridge can - and it goes one better, for it has a lady cobbler! Mrs Dorothy Croxton carries out cobbling in a small shop in Market Street, where her repairs range from small slippers to heavy duty leggings. Dorothy has been carrying on her traditional trade for the last 12 years, since her husband, Bernard, left the business to work for the council...\ The print has the copyright stamp of 'Peter Lea (Photo-Journalist), 27 Darlington Street, Wolverhampton.' Shoe making. Cobbling. Library code: Penkridge nostalgia 2016.
Back in May 1970 this photo was captioned: ‘Not many villages can boast of having a cobbler. But Penkridge can - and it goes one better, for it has a lady cobbler! Dorothy Croxton carries out cobbling in a small shop in Market Street, where repairs range from slippers to heavy duty leggings.’
Back in May 1970 this photo was captioned: ‘Not many villages can boast of having a cobbler. But Penkridge can - and it goes one better, for it has a lady cobbler! Dorothy Croxton carries out cobbling in a small shop in Market Street, where repairs range from slippers to heavy duty leggings.’
This picture from the past shows the Whitchurch fire station quiz team which won the national finals of a fire service national quiz competition. We think the photograph dates from the 1950s. Far left is Jock Buckley of Shrewsbury, who was training firemen at Whitchurch. 
This picture from the past shows the Whitchurch fire station quiz team which won the national finals of a fire service national quiz competition. We think the photograph dates from the 1950s. Far left is Jock Buckley of Shrewsbury, who was training firemen at Whitchurch. 

Flags are only funny for some

I am reading a book called White Fragility. It explores how white people respond to thinking about racism. I have tried to write this as carefully as I could but this book makes clear what reaction I am most likely to get, which is sad as I am talking about something at society level that affects us all.

Flags that have recently been painted onto cows near Bridgnorth are only funny for white people. Non white people like nearly all the carers who looked after my husband in hospital, or the doctor who gave him his new hip, or the woman from Afghanistan I met on the bus revising for her driving theory test, or my teacher friends from Martinique would not find St George flags on cows funny. Brexit frightened off the white Eastern Europeans and we now have a lot more non white people in their place. None of them will be finding it funny either.

These red crosses on white flags or white roundabouts or anything else white, that make white people feel proud to be English are menacing for non white people. The flags used en masse in this way are implements of racism. They make non white people feel unwelcome and vulnerable. This WILL embolden some whites to carry out acts of intimidation in this new environment where they are being falsely led to believe that non white people are the cause of their very real problems.

Far right leaders are encouraging people to blame the economic fallout from their Brexit, from the pandemic, from Putin’s war, on migrants. Prior to Hitler, swastikas were a widely recognised symbol of good luck, fertility, and well-being in many cultures, used by companies and in architecture. Hitler used mass flag waving and swastikas to stir up the population making them feel proud of their country, while he simultaneously demeaned the Jews blaming all the financial problems of runaway inflation on them.

People say history repeats itself. We all have access to historical facts nowadays so we are not ignorant of the past. History is repeating itself - I hope we decide to intervene.

Victoria Barnes, Shropshire

Where are the fathers to help?

The fact that this wretched government is probably the worst within living memory does not necessarily mean that they are automatically to blame for everyone's difficulties and problems.