Letters: Lack of convenience when caught short in city centre

Needing the toilet when out and about should not be a stressful situation. People don't always have time to find the very few available to the public on the top floors of department stores, or hidden in shopping centres.

The railway and bus stations both expect 30p for the privilege. Do you always have a handy 30p in the right coins in your pocket, and is that fair? The only public toilet I am aware of is in Princes Street Gardens, a long way from, say, High Street or Market Street.

As our council does not see fit to spend our taxes on public toilet facilities, perhaps it would like to make it law that all cafes and bars must allow the public to use theirs, as is the case in many European countries.

Simon Musgrove, Leith

Make clean pitch footballers' goal

ONE wonders if there is a missing or damaged gene in the makeup of footballers and their supporters.

Or is there another reason why so many of the teams who play football in Drumbrae Park, and other pitches in the city, leave litter along the touchline after matches?

As a regular user of Drumbrae Park I have been fighting a battle, to date a losing battle, with Edinburgh Leisure to have some action taken against the football teams who hire the pitch and leave rubbish.

One of the conditions of let is that they leave the pitch tidy but, unfortunately, this is more often than not ignored.

It is a sad fact that while the sports centre staff are very helpful and tidy up the park after matches it appears that senior management at Edinburgh Leisure cannot or will not take action.

Perhaps a team being banned from the pitches for a week or two might have a salutary effect on the behaviour of all teams.

Bruce Gorie, Craigmount Avenue North, Edinburgh

Which absentee is more deserving?

NO SURPRISE to read that LibDem candidate for Edinburgh South West, Tim McKay, is on holiday in Australia (News, 15 April). This whilst campaigning is under way for one of the most important general elections in decades. Hard to say if this is worse than the absentee representation of Alistair Darling for his seat which Mr McKay is contesting.

Perhaps voters have a choice in these two between different degrees of absentee representation?

Carl Kieck, Wester Hailes

Dead would be as useful in Commons

I AM not over-familiar with the conditions to which a person must conform in order to become a candidate for a seat in parliament, and wonder if actually being alive is a necessary component.

If it isn't, and someone could be found to put up the deposits, we might once again be able to vote for John Smith, Robin Cook, Donald Dewar and the other sadly deceased political giants who put today's political pygmies in the shade.

Would a parliament of the dead do any worse? No; they wouldn't. Sadly, I would rather cast my vote for the late Hugh Gaitskill, Keir Hardie or even Winston Churchill, rather than any living ex-minister.

David Fiddimore, Calton Road, Edinburgh

Head of the class for hair treatment

I REFER to the article in Friday's News on the provision of wigs or as we prefer to call them replacement hair units. Turveys Salon 14, 14 Glasgow Road, is a specialist salon providing the very treatment this venture now proposes to provide and it has been trading since 1918.

We have held a contract with the NHS since contracts were first drawn up and are highly regarded within the hospital environment for our care and dedication to clients going through hair loss due to many different conditions, but especially chemotherapy.

Pam Thomson, director of Turvey & Co and a total alopecia sufferer

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