With some effort, I travelled to Edinburgh from Kelso on 5 July to experience in person what would be a once-in-a-lifetime joyous occasion for me, especially after months of shielding during the pandemic. The weather was perfect and the day held such promise, as I returned to the city I loved that had been my home for around 50 years until recently, to bask in the sunshine and soak up the atmosphere of positivity and pure happiness. To be part of history.

Whoa! Like Alice tumbling into a maleficent land, surreally and unexpectedly, I found myself surrounded by a raucous, miserable, braying, booing, bullying and arrogant mob for four hours solid outside St Giles’ Cathedral. Every single living thing that dared to walk down the Royal Mile that afternoon was jeered, booed and belittled – from the Household Cavalry, pipe bands, foot soldiers, church ministers, 100 ordinary people in the procession, the Edinburgh High Constables, photographers, and MPs to Cpl Cruachan IV, the Shetland pony.

It was easily one of the worst, most miserable days of my entire life. Hundreds of people with megaphones and very large banners and flags tortured me relentlessly with a cacophony of shouting, screaming and whistling, echoing their choreographed cries between their two groups, from one side of the Royal Mile to the other. The massed bands were unable to drown out the earsplitting sounds and the 21-gun salute went unheard. Protesters were behind waist-high barriers with an uninterrupted view, and I was behind a double-set of 6 or 7ft barriers made of criss-crossed wire. I’m 4ft 11in. I wanted to partake in the ceremony, they didn’t.

Jeering protesters ruined reader's once-in-a-lifetime day out as King Charles came to Edinburgh to accept the Honours of Scotland (Picture: Danny Lawson - Pool/Getty Images)

I should not have been forced to endure such despicable behaviour as that rained down on me by “Not My King” protesters. There was no respite, not a second’s peace. There was to be no joyous occasion, or even moment, in my lifetime for me to experience and enjoy in person the crowning of a new King and Queen, NMK made sure of that.They simply stomped all over my rights, very loudly and very grudgingly. It makes me indescribably sad. The glorious moment has passed forever for me.

Long live the King!

Pat Straw, Kelso, Scottish Borders

Rocket science?

It is reported that in May 2021 Boris Johnson changed his mobile phone because his phone number was available online and now he can’t remember the passcode for the phone and is therefore unable to provide the Covid-19 Inquiry with WhatsApp messages which are on it.

Why, rather than obtaining a completely new phone, did he not get a different number by simply changing the SIM card?

George Rennie, Inverness

Education needed

There has been much recent discussion about whether or not certain drugs might be legalised for personal use. I don't feel sufficiently qualified to come to a definitive conclusion, but through a number of years involvement with the Children's Hearings System I witnessed first-hand the enormous damage that the misuse of drugs can cause in families. However, I also saw some instances where limited drug intake proved to be no barrier to the loving care and nurturing of children.

While I don't pretend to have all the answers, I am convinced that simply treating drug use/possession as a crime just doesn't work. If it did, we would no longer have a serious issue. Alcohol is a drug, but as Prohibition in the US demonstrated, just making it illegal doesn't work. We don't fine or imprison people for possession or supply of alcohol, but we do try to help those whose lives have been blighted by alcohol dependence. I am not using this as an argument for decriminalisation, but I would suggest that, when it comes to drug misuse, we need to shift the emphasis away from punishment and towards education and effective treatment.

David Hamill, East Linton, East Lothian

Pure greed

Until recently I was under the mistaken impression that we, the ordinary citizens of the land, elected and paid our Members of Parliament to govern and guide our country to the best of their ability… in spite of them having no specific qualifications whatever for the job, unlike other professions. Now something has been revealed to us that most of us never even guessed – namely that many or most of those people we have elected to represent us, have second jobs!

Not only that, but newly released figures show the enormity of the commitment of those Members of Parliament to those second jobs.The average payment for those “extra-mural” hours is now revealed to be an astounding £237 per hour! Can they not remember that the average national minimum wage of each citizen who elects them is merely about £10.50 per hour at the moment!

How can MP Liz Truss sleep at night when she has been making an eye-watering £15,770 per hour? I'm no left wing revolutionary but now that we citizens know the extent of the time and energy our politicians put into their second jobs, should we not be attempting to limit those well-paid members to carrying out only the day job that we pay them for?

Archibald A Lawrie, Kingskettle, Fife

Eye-watering

While Alexander McKay (Letters, 14 July) appears to spend most of his waking hours attempting to identify every penny that, in his opinion, the SNP Scottish Government could have spent more wisely, the dysfunctional “union” that he seems to love is going up in smoke.

The UK Government stands condemned by international aid organisations for its callous approach to processing refugees and genuine asylum-seekers. The UK Government is no longer trusted to honour its word in international agreements and “the mother of parliaments” is now ridiculed around the world due to its democratically archaic FPTP electoral system and an anachronistic second chamber. Even that former paragon of impartiality, the BBC, is no longer implicitly trusted by any political party. As prime minister, Liz Truss singlehandedly blasted a huge hole in the last vestiges of economic competence that the Tory UK Government retained following the tripling of UK Government debt in spite of more than a decade of public austerity.

The massive amounts in tens of billions of pounds that have been lost due to UK Government incompetence (failed Track and Trace Service), cronyism (useless PPE incinerated) and possible corruption (fraud written-off), never mind an estimated HS2 cost overrun of around double the total of this waste at £130bn, are indeed “eye-watering”. In fact these amounts are so large that many may struggle to comprehend the impact on their day-to-day lives of this costly “union”. The interest alone on the UK debt is now costing Scotland close to £10bn a year, enough to build 50 over-budget dual-fuel ferries each year, and Scotland’s share of this waste (not including the huge amounts in misguided defence spending) and one of many UK Government cost overruns is sufficient to build another hundred such ferries.

Nero may not have fiddled while Rome burned but at least he could apparently see that the buildings around him were on fire.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Hypocrites

Climate Camp Scotland has said that the protest camp set up near the Ineos Kinneil terminal in Grangemouth will be Scotland's biggest protest encampment for a decade (your report, 13 July). Did the demonstrators from India, Netherlands and Ukraine arrive by bike? What about the others? As usual, eco-demonstrators utter fine words with little substance. The camp’s Jessica Gaitan Johannesson says: “Grangemouth can transition to sustainable industry and jobs”. As an author she is well able to spin words, but how and when will the 1,300 highly skilled and highly paid workers in Grangemouth become highly paid workers in a sustainable industry? Ineos employs 26,000 people worldwide and tens of thousands in the supply chain. Where will they all get green jobs? Perhaps she can tell them?

Her statements are similar to those of the wind industry which promised tens of thousands of Scottish jobs. Instead the wind turbines were manufactured abroad, shipped here by foreign ships, erected by foreign labour and are now owned by foreign companies. The few jobs for local people are the picking up and concealment of birds and bats minced by the turbine blades. Strange that the eco-demonstrators never demonstrate about this carnage. Strange that the climate demonstrators never go to China, India and the coal, oil and gas-rich countries.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

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Readers' Letters: Anti-Royalists ruined once-in-a-lifetime event

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