YOU never know quite what's going to happen on the Letters Pages.
It started innocuously enough. On Monday of last week, The Herald's Picture of the Day was a striking shot of a bird on the wing – captioned as a crow. On the Tuesday, a reader argued that the crow was in fact a jackdaw. On the Wednesday, we had the rejoinder that jackdaws are members of the crow family, so the caption was technically correct. And last Saturday, we published a splendid poem from reader Rhona Godfrey which wittily encapsulated the whole debate. A neat package of one picture, two letters and a rhyme, all in one week. Satisfying.
Then on Monday, reader Gilbert MacKay suggested that Ms Godfrey's contribution "deserves to be Letter of the Year" – and therein lies the rub.
I could not possibly say whether the poem was the best letter of the year or not. I have to be objective, not subjective. Every letter is published on merit; I can't have favourites. It wouldn't do for me to say that an amusing anecdote involving Para Handy or Bud Neill is of more value than a discourse on GERS or devo max. My aim is to provide letters pages that have a little bit of something for everyone. A discussion of collective nouns is as worthy as a debate about renewable energy as long as it adds to the sum total of interest and enjoyment.
But, dear reader, what about you? You will have your favourite letter writers (and, by the by, those who get your back up every time). But has a letter ever changed your political standpoint? Made you think twice about something you previously held as a given? Educated you on a subject you had previously thought little about? Or even just made you laugh out loud over a cup of tea at the breakfast table? Would you wish to honour such contributions?
There would certainly be no shortage of contenders. By my reckoning we're publishing around 5,000 letters a year.
We could, if you so wish, instigate a letter-writers roll of honour, voted upon by you yourselves. I'm thinking overall Letter of the Year; Political Letter of the Year; Specialist Subject Letter of the Year; Most Amusing Letter of the Year, and Correspondent of the Year. We could, indulging in a flight of fancy here, call them the Herald Scrievers. And before you ask, no, I'm not thinking of initiating any raspberries for those who get your goat. That would probably flood our mailbox.
It's all entirely up to you. Just let me know what you think.
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