Best pork pies ever

Have a run out to the village of Jump near Barnsley Cyril and visit Percy Turners butchers shop on Church Street where, arguably, you will sample the best fresh and warm pork pie ever made, not just in South Yorkshire but in all of Yorkshire, in my humble opinion.

Terry Palmer

South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley, S74

The play that was good

We went to see The Play That Goes Wrong at the Lyceum last Monday as it was recommended by our daughter in London.

It was one of the funniest plays we’ve ever seen.

The small cast worked so hard, how they manage a matinee too l don’t know.

It’s mainly about a local drama group putting on a murder/mystery and as the title suggests everything does go wrong.

Laughed so much my face was aching.

If you can catch this play, don’t arrive too late as the cast are frantically looking for a lost dog and a door won’t shut all before the play starts.

Well done to the cast. Brilliant night out.

Ann Morton

Woodseats

I want to say thanks

I just want to say thanks to Sheffield Homes, Hillsborough. I don’t want to name the lady who helped me because I’ve not asked her, but my mum passed away and she lived in her house for years and they’ve been great and given me permission to stay until am ready to move.

If someone’s helped you, you should thank them, so thanks Sheffield Homes.

Brian Dunbar

by email

Local bus services

As part of my position with First South Yorkshire I work with our performance and operations teams who analyse the bus network and service delivery to identify any daily issues or problems.

I have read the recent letter from Jack Chantry, (The Star letters, February 9, 2016), which comments on the recent delays to the 71, 72 and 73 services and I can fully understand that it is frustrating that there have been problems with services running late recently, but unfortunately the delays have mainly been due to the closure of Woodfield Way, which the bus services operate along.

We are confident that once the roadworks are complete, then the service will return to normal.

I’d like to reassure everyone that we regularly assess all of our bus services and we are confident that the timetable we have in place is working, but our services are impacted when there are unexpected road closures or incidents.

It’s very concerning to hear that we have unhappy customers and so I’d like to provide an opportunity for people to get in touch with the business directly.

If you’d like to discuss the performance of your local bus services then please call 01709 566 000, or you can tweet us @FirstSouthYorks.

Andy Simpson

Head of Business Performance at First South Yorkshire

Non-fiction scenario

Imagine you are bedridden to the point where you cannot get up to use a commode and are incontinent.

Thanks to new legislation you are now reduced to just three pads each day even if you suffer a week of incontinence and face up to ten hours without a clean-up and change of pad daily.

This is no fictional scenario but a fact of life here in Sheffield. What price the savings gained from this idiocy when the queues for hospital treatment for pressure sores, urinary infections and skin conditions are increasing?

The extra burden on care staff will spread the load beyond their scope and they will suffer because they really hate seeing their helpless clients so unfairly treated by uncaring, bureaucratic stupidity.

June Hibberd-Cooke

Beechwood Road, Stocksbridge, S36

Library criteria

Until March 2008, libraries in England were asked to meet 10 criteria in order to meet their obligations to local people.

These included targets for: closeness of libraries to their customers, opening hours, access to the internet and other online catalogue services, number of books and other items purchased new each year.

The Tory government’s libraries task force is busy promoting an agenda of reiventing libraries along the Rory government’s localism/austerity agenda, including replacing paid librarians with volunteers and self-service.

It seems surprising that our own council, which supposedly opposes the localism/austerity agenda being implemented by central government, is paying for a manager from it’s library service to work for said libraries taskforce.

We need all parties to be advocating professionally staffed library services which are subject to proper national standards in England, not the current hodge podge of volunteer run services and staffed services run on minimal staffing, which seem to be what Sheffield Libraries is aiming for at the 12 city libraries still lucky enough to have professional librarians.

Joe Clarke

Meersbrook Road, Sheffield, S8

Not so lucky as children

It has been said on the news that people born in the 1920s and 30s are the most well off these days.

That is true, I agree! But we were not so lucky as children as we grew up during a terrible war.

No toys or sweets, no playing outside, (incase the sirens went), fathers involved in keeping us safe, most fathers gone for five years, some never returning, not a good time to grow up in the 1930s and 40s.

S Rogers

Greystones Road, S11

Truly liberated

Our generation, (born 1954), lived in the shadow of nuclear annihilation and in a sense that liberated us. We knew life was fragile and therefore to be lived. Man ascends and descends, some rise spiritually while all around them others are falling.

Only through justice and truth are we entitled to faith and hope. And only by denying cruelty and evil can we be truly liberated.

David C Wilding

Wollaton Drive, Southport

Dogs not allowed

‘School bans dogs from the school grounds.’

I thought all dogs were banned from school premises?

Who in their right mind would think it’s ok to take a dog to pick the kids up from school?

I tackled one mum at school on this, she couldn’t see why people were complaining.

The next day she came with the dog but it was in a handbag.

Happy now she said? No not really, in a bag or not it shouldn’t be here, and let’s be honest, unless the dog has no legs, it needs to walk, not be paraded round like a fashion accessory.

Jayne Grayson

by email