Your letters: Dangerous bikers and rising bills, plus a glimpse of Bridgnorth in 1966

PICTURE FROM THE PAST: Dressed in a splendid top hat, 78-year-old Samuel Brighton sounds a fanfare on a vintage post horn to draw shoppers to his antique stall beneath Bridgnorth's iconic Town Hall on September 2, 1966. Assisted by his wife, Mabel, 73, who holds up a polished silver dish, the couple showcase an array of brassware, copper vessels, and curious knick-knacks along the High Street. Their lively trade and characterful presentation brought a wonderful touch of traditional showmanship to the weekly Shropshire market scene. | ©PA

placeholder image — PICTURE FROM THE PAST: Dressed in a splendid top hat, 78-year-old Samuel Brighton sounds a fanfare on a vintage post horn to draw shoppers to his antique stall beneath Bridgnorth's iconic Town Hall on September 2, 1966. Assisted by his wife, Mabel, 73, who holds up a polished silver dish, the couple showcase an array of brassware, copper vessels, and curious knick-knacks along the High Street. Their lively trade and characterful presentation brought a wonderful touch of traditional showmanship to the weekly Shropshire market scene. | ©PA

Readers speak out on dangerous driving, rising energy bills and the treatment of a heckler at a political conference

Lunatic bikers a danger on road

On Sunday, August 6, at about 2pm, on Long Common, coming from Bridgnorth and towards Wombourne, I would like to say to the three total idiots on high-powered motor cycles how thoughtless and idiotic your riding (if you could call it riding) was. You had no thought for the speed limit, no thought for the amount of vehicles that you dangerously overtook. One rider decided to overtake at a junction where a Land Rover was about to enter the road and, more by luck than skill, an accident was avoided.

You then, all three, thought it was a good idea to overtake on the road where there are hidden dips and gave no thought to any vehicle that may have been in those dips.

Your riding was not clever, it was not skilful; it was purely and utterly overwhelming, idiotic and dangerous to the extreme. Had an accident taken place and you were killed, no doubt your relatives would have said, "He was a wonderful husband, father, brother, uncle, always there to help people, was generous to all."

Well, you three were very lucky to have made it home. But please don't think for one second what you did was anything but lunacy at its extreme. Carry on like that and your loving relatives will be arranging funerals.

You are the sort that gives good motorcyclists a bad name.

Pete Lowe, Brierley Hill

Blame Tories for our rising bills

I refer to a letter “Bill shows how times change” which compares an electricity bill dated 1968 to a present day bill, showing a staggering increase in electricity cost over the last 58 years. The blame for this increase is placed firmly at the door of Ed Miliband and his "green energy" policy.

A more accurate assessment of Miliband's influence here would be given by comparing a bill from 2024, when the Labour government came to power, to a present day one.

If your correspondent is searching for the true culprits in this case he should go back to the 1980s when the electricity board was handed over to private control by the Tories.

David Clenton, Walsall

Heckler was treated badly

I always thought that our democratic right was to be able to protest.

At the Reform conference, a young lady heckled. Attacked by being pulled off her chair, bruising her arm, her hair pulled and stepped on, her face attacked. An elderly man hitting her over the head with a metal crutch. People have always heckled at political conferences for many years. I have never seen anyone treated so badly.

Valerie Amos, Midlands

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