They should use Glen Sannox on conventional fuel during the summer

David Brown, Cambuslang.

Please listen, we are suffering

I WAS very pleased to see the bipolar disorder report by Helen McArdle ("Mental health openness has been 'harmful' for bipolar sufferers", The Herald, March 30).

I am a sufferer of the severe form the disorder takes and am tired of hearing less severe and enduring forms of mental illness being discussed as being within the same bracket. Not only are cases of bipolar remaining undiagnosed due to an onslaught of people monitoring their mental health but we are being told "Well, that is just like me" which leads to an already-shaken person doubting themselves, blaming themselves for their attitude and thinking they are just not good enough.

Everyone has mental health, they now say. But no, some people don't. And bipolar is not just an exaggerated version of highs and lows of everyday life.

Please listen. We are suffering. As Theodore Roosevelt said, "comparison is the thief of joy". Don't compare yourself to us, we live by borrowed means. Feeling well one day has another episode waiting to chase that away.

Babs Campbell, Milngavie.

• CONGRATULATIONS to Helen McArdle on her enlightening interview with Jayne Laidlaw, chief executive of Bipolar Scotland.

Alongside this piece was David Carr’s description of his personal symptoms, an extremely clear and moving account of the high manic and low seriously-depressive episodes of this severe and enduring lifelong mental disorder.

The sad thing is the protracted diagnostic period of many years, during which time prompt treatment with lithium mainly and a combination of other drugs would have prevented much sadness, worry and in many cases desperation in the lives of the sufferers and their families.

I am very pleased to see that ongoing research on lithium’s invaluable help in bipolar disorder is happening in Edinburgh. The outcome of this added to much earlier referral by GPs to psychiatric units can only alleviate the lives of the many members of the population affected by the bipolar disorder.

Kay Campbell, Milngavie.

Ostracising ASN children

I WRITE as the former Independent chair of the Review of Implementation of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act published by the Scottish Government in June 2020.

News of the offer to parents of class photos with some children omitted at the school in Aboyne ("Firm apologises over school class pictures offered without children with complex needs", The Herald, March 30) has prompted strong reaction across media and the public. It appears the school itself is equally appropriately appalled.

However, this is not an isolated incident. During the course of my review I heard accounts from many parents of children with additional support needs being actively excluded from class photos, parties and school trips.

Apart from the immense hurt caused to those children and their families the clear message learned by all children in those environments is that difference should be rejected. We should not be surprised therefore when those beliefs and attitudes are also reflected in wider society.

Whilst our education system continues to consider the one-third of children with additional support needs in our schools who don't "fit in" as an after-thought, or as a costly burden, we will continue to see visible signs of how, in reality, some of our children and young people are not valued, regardless of any number of stated policies on inclusive education.

Angela Morgan, Tullibody.

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Closures were predictable

OVER many years, I have had friendly help and local advice from locally-run tourist offices. In particular, I remember those at Peebles, Melrose, Pitlochry, Stirling and Lerwick.

When they were taken over by Visit Scotland as a result of the ever-spreading cult of remote "management", the deterioration was soon apparent. I feared then that this was the beginning of the end for yet another locally-controlled amenity and this fear has now turned out to have been justified ("On-street tourist information centres to close as Visitscotland moves to a ‘digital first’ approach", The Herald, March 28, and Letters, March 30).

Peter Dryburgh, Edinburgh.

Jayne Laidlaw, chief executive of Bipolar Scotland (Image: Newsquest)

Boring question

ALAN Dunlop (Letters, March 29) could well be correct in saying that Mackintosh "wouldn't want faithful reconstruction". However, almost all creative people consider their earlier work to be dated and of comparatively little importance, contrary to others' more measured and disinterested evaluation.

When jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was in London in 1958, an interviewer asked him if there was anything he hadn't liked about his visit to Britain: "Yeah: guys askin' about what I was doin' in nineteen f****** twenty-three."

Robin Dow, Rothesay.

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Eye-eye...

THE letter (March 29) from my 1950s classmate Ken Cameron on distorted English pronunciation such as "die" instead of "day" took me back to my time as a CA apprentice, checking endless lists of transactions with colleagues from one book to another in pre-decimalisation and pre-computer times, when we had to distinguish pound amounts in round numbers from those ending between one and nine.

For example, in calling out £71/9/6 (ie seventy-one pounds, nine shillings and six pence for youngsters under 50) you would simply say "seventy-one nine six" for speed. But if you said "seventy nine six" for £70/9/6 it would not be clear if the pounds amount was £70 or £79.

We therefore pronounced it "sevent-eye nine six".

A colleague told us that two tradesmen, when replacing the glass in the office windows, were clearly amused by this, with one calling to the other "Will-eye, can you pass me the blood-eye putt-eye?"

John Birkett, St Andrews.