Flood prevention

IN THE 1960s I knew an Edinburgh gentleman, captured at Dunkirk, who spent five years in a German prisoner of war camp.

Over a pint, the topic of conversation was the flooding of the Water of Leith at Murrayfield. He described that near to his PoW camp was a small river which often overflowed. He and all the PoWs during dry spells were made to remove from the riverbed all boulders and pile them at the river’s edge to give free flow to the rising water at flood times. It worked.

Now we have mechanical diggers that can do the work. I do not see why it should cost £40 million (Letters, 12 November). I could suggest that a source of labour, given a few hundred pairs of wellies, could even be sourced at little cost from our own Saughton Prison to get the work done.

Robert Brown

Lomond Place, Kinross