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Lake District must beware trap of trying too hard
Letters from the Telegraph

Sir – As a middle-aged, middle-class, black person, I would like to say “thanks but no thanks” to the bureaucrats who have decided to encourage people like me to walk in the National Parks (News, Jan 3). From the age of five, my Jamaican father and English mother felt quite able to take me on walking holidays in the Lake District. We even made it to the north of Scotland without feeling threatened or intimidated.

People from differing cultural and ethnic backgrounds really don’t need to be patronised in this way. We’re off to Spain this year - there’s less rain.

Rowena Forfar, Beeston, Notts

Sir – Last July, 36 walkers from Cheshire – I trust Stephen Benson, (Letters, Jan 4) was not one – hove to under Hollin Bank, by the Coniston road at a height of 150 metres, on a fine summer’s day. I asked one of the “co-leaders” where they were hea
ded and discovered that they were over a mile adrift. Fortunately the weather was not worse and the elevation not 600 metres higher. It is imperative that as many unwary visitors as possible are subjected to the authority’s guided walks.

Michael Jefferson, Felmersham Beds

Sir – Jim White (Opinion, Jan 3) says that, “for most suburban youth, the only sense of the passing of the seasons is when the adverts on the telly change”. My suburb has trees, birds and gardens; it is possible to observe seasons without going near the countryside. Since we have pavements, you don’t have to squelch through the mire.

Louise O’Connor, Richmond, Surrey

Sir – At the National Theatre on Tuesday, the audience for The History Boys was overwhelmingly white, middle-class and middle-aged. Like the Lake District National Park, this theatre is looking for further public money: should not its funding also depend on attracting fewer of the people who now enjoy visiting it?

Neil Collins, London SW6

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