Let's have less hypocrisy over the vandalism of Savile's cottage

1) What Savile's countless victims over many decades actually needed, instead of macho chest-thumping against "PAEDOS", was someone, anyone, to notice and to stop it happening. Over decades few noticed, few cared and few (however powerful) dared try to have it stopped. How does belated bravado and outrage - very like the hasty, hypocritical removal of Savile-linked street names, or demolition of Savile's gravestone by those who had feted him - protect a single abused child or adult?

2) Allt na Reigh is, and was, just a building: indeed one with a venerable history as Hamish McInnes's house. A building is not a person, nor an evil person.

3) I'm sure some vandals and graffiti artists were abused themselves, acting out their anger. What we want instead is for you to contact a trauma support organisation, and through that to find strength (and help from better mechanisms for confidential reporting) to name the criminals against yourself and possibly hundreds of others.

If more victims could do this with support, there would be far less continuing abuse; fewer young men would waste their lives in jail after killing or attacking their abusers; and scapegoating by self-styled vigilantes who attack suspected (or imagined) perpetrators would greatly reduce. Could you find the courage, along with many others, to identify the actual, real-life perpetrators who still remain frequent in your midst and ours?

I hope support groups and services especially in the Lochaber area are now enabled, strengthened and financed to respond positively to this episode, and to reach out to help the vandals do the same. And I hope too that we will witness less hypocrisy and cover-up about the sexual abuse of young people.

Sarah Nelson, Newport on Tay.

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Could oil fund net zero?

NOT only did David Cameron’s 2014 rush for net zero leave the UK without energy security and reliant on importing foreign gas, it has caused job losses, created inflation and propelled the ongoing cost of living crisis from expensive foreign imports.

Subsequent governments were left hamstrung from ignoring the fact that the existing ageing National Grid had no spare capacity whilst trying to convince taxpayers they could have heat pumps and electric cars, not only at great additional expense, but without even a sufficient electricity supply.

There is no dispute vast sums of money are now needed for renewable energies to electrify Britain involving rebuilding the National Grid and integrating several new pumped water storage systems like Corrie Glas.

However, payments from North Sea "windfall" taxes appear totally inadequate when politicians continue to reject the further oil exploration and production needed to make the profits to pay them. Proof, if needed, is that the latest levy in 2023 produced half the expected return, whilst affected workers in Aberdeen were left on the dole.

A bold new creative carrot-and-stick approach is called for by allowing new offshore development if the oil companies agree to transition onshore to invest in and build a vast new National Grid and electrical energy networks to support new hungry banks of computers alongside the millions of electric cars planned for a net zero future.

This massive project could take at least 12 years using existing UK North Sea construction and management skills to contain its estimated initial cost of £340 billion.

No government can hope to retain power if it attempts to impose such costs and further tax a population already burdened with high living costs. Can policies be modified to reflect reality? Can a net zero compromise be reached with the North Sea developers to transition onshore and provide the UK with the energy security that is fundamental to economic prosperity? Is there a sniff of change in the air?

Elizabeth Marshall, Edinburgh.

Rhine time

EITHER Ronald H Oliver (Letters, June 18) heard Orson Welles wrong or Orson Welles heard the Swiss wrong.

The Swiss won’t have told Welles the Schwarzwald is in Bavaria, because it’s in Baden-Württemberg. That’s the bit on the left, east of France and north of Switzerland, all the way up to Stuttgart. It's possible Orson Welles found Baden-Württemberg tricky to remember.

In English you say the Black Forest. It’s vast, all hills and pine trees, a few large lakes. The snow sparkles like chandeliers in winter, and so does the air.

Fancy clocks might easily come from the many small towns separated by hills and pine trees.

Cuckoo clocks are said to have been first constructed by Black Forest farmers in winter from the late 18th century.

Snowed-in Swiss farmers also made chronometers in winter from as early as the late 17th century, but no cuckoo clocks.

There are modern clock and watch industries around the southern edge of Baden-Württemberg along the Rhine, cousins as it were of the timepiece industries this side of the Rhine.

Tim Cox, Bern, Switzerland.

Jimmy Savile (Image: PA)

Flower power

I HAD to laugh at Stuart Neville’s letter (June 18) about Flower of Scotland. He was silent on both his own musical talent and that of Roy Williamson, who greatly impressed Barney McKenna (founder of both the Chieftains and the Dubliners).

In 1974 the British Lions were facing South Africa in the final and crucial match of their tour. Their captain, Willie John McBride of Northern Ireland, insisted that, before they left the team bus, they should sing Flower of Scotland. The English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish did so and went out to perform the game of a lifetime. I rest my portmanteau.

George F Campbell, Glasgow.