I SPENT the main part of my career as an engineer and manager engaged in the planning and development of the nationalised electricity supply industry in Scotland. In those days we planned capital investments against a seven-year horizon and overlaid that plan with long-term scenario studies which looked at generating station requirements for credible changes in technology and fuel source developments up to 40 years ahead.

All of that strategic planning went out of the door when the Thatcher Government decided that it would no longer be required, as the new competitive market would send clear signals to trigger investment by industry players. That ideological dream was never going to be realised due to the fact that engineers may be capable of looking 40 years ahead, but investors look for much faster returns and politicians only look as far as the next election. The result has been 30 years during which there has been no national energy plan.

Recent events have brought this situation into sharp focus and to kick-start some strategic thinking in Scotland I would make an urgent plea for the SNP Government to realise that its perfectly reasonable opposition to nuclear weapons does not need to be accompanied by stubborn opposition to nuclear generation of electricity. Reliable base-load, emission-free, hydrocarbon-free generation is a necessary adjunct to renewable generation with a large reliance on wind.

Willie Maclean, Milngavie.

TENANTS SWAMPED BY PAPERWORK

IT must be disappointing for Patrick Harvie, our Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights, to learn that many people who rent privately in Scotland are still unaware of their tenancy rights ("Know your rights as a private tenant", Agenda, The Herald, March 23). I wonder if the research breaks down whether such uninformed tenants are all from the pre-December 2017 era, before the Scottish Government’s Private Residential Tenancy Agreements (PRTA) were introduced. Surely they could not be from the current PRTA era given the wealth of information with which they are deluged before a new tenancy is set up.

A typical PRTA extends to some 67 pages, with a couple of helpful introductory pages entitled "Know your rights", followed by a useful index to the PRTA’s three sections, Section 2 being an essential Glossary of Terms and Interpretation without which the hapless parties to the agreement will not be able to understand the 36 clauses which comprise Section 3. Wading through all that eventually brings the weary parties to about page 23, the remaining 40-odd pages comprising “Easy Read Notes for the Scottish Government Model Private Residential Tenancy Agreement”, the Easy Read Notes being so easy to read that they also start with a definition of "Agreement" to mean "the tenancy agreement for the property which is being leased".

The tenant must of course be given a full copy of the PRTA in prescribed form, with all its attendant notes, so one wonders why any tenant in the PRTA era could possibly be unaware of their rights. Could it just be that swamping a tenant with such information overload is a sure-fire way to guarantee that only the most diligent prospective tenant with a penchant for perusing lengthy legal documents will ever actually read the stuff? Sometimes less is indeed more.

Campbell Fullarton, Kilmarnock.

MYRA AND ME? PERISH THE THOUGHT

DOUG Marr ("The perfect symbol of the UK after Brexit", The Herald, March 21) says that his last passport photo "bore a startling resemblance to a 19th century serial killer". I had the same problem in the late 1970s when my late husband persuaded me to apply for a passport, my first, so that I could go to Amsterdam where he was working. The photo had me looking like Myra Hindley, one of the Moors Murderers. I immediately destroyed it and didn't go abroad.

The second passport photo, eight years ago, had me looking like an older version of Hindley as she stared out at me in a very malignant fashion. I destroyed that too. I was supposed to be going to France to see the places in the book by Alain Fournier – Le Grand Meaulnes – but never went. No more attempts at passports for me now as I have found my own "lost domain" here.

And I do not look anything like Myra Hindley, except on passport photos. I sympathise with Mr Marr.

Thelma Edwards, Kelso.

A DEVINE RHAPSODY

THE surprising revelation that a paella need not contain fish of any variety ("Issue of the day: What no fish? The real paella rules", The Herald, March 23), if you’re from Valencia that is, brought back happy memories of my introduction to that scrumptious Spanish delight in a newly-built fine hotel in Puerto de Santiago, Tenerife, in 1987.

I was also impressed by the enthusiasm of another punter who was so moved that he made a beeline to the chef and graciously expressed his appreciation.

The replete and amiable punter? The late Sydney Devine.

R Russell Smith, Largs.

PRICES IN THE ROUND

I WOULD like to add my own recollections to those of R Russell Smith and David Williamson (Letters, March 23) and David J Crawford (Letters, March 19) of how much cheaper things were in days of yore.

In the early 1970s, the aunt and uncle of my future wife regularly invited me, an impecunious medical student, to their home to join the family for high tea on a Saturday.

After the dishes had been washed and cleared away, the matriarchs went away to visit neighbours, while my girlfriend, her uncle, my prospective father- and grandfather-in-law and I played dominoes.

We then went over to Mennie's (aka the Speedwell bar, a well-known public house in Dundee) where we would order rounds consisting of two dark rums, a whisky, a pint and a half of lager, a bottle of Worthington's White Shield and a bottle of cola.

On each occasion, we used to get change from £1.

Christopher W Ide, Waterfoot.

* MY husband invariably asks the assistant in the bakery for a "tuppenny" pie and inevitably gets a quizzical look before handing over considerably more than 100 times that price.

Evelyn Hogarth, Glasgow.

DUCK, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY

ERIC Macdonald's letter (March 24) prompted me to explore any significance attached to my birthday, February 6. Alas, I find that it is National Lame Duck Day.

So that explains why friends think there is something wrong with me.

David Miller, Milngavie.