Well off track

While I wholeheartedly agree about the “white elephant” expression when applied to the Border railway, no-one who has ever been anywhere near the Borders could write such nonsense about the area as a whole as John Eoin Douglas did (Letters, 20 September).

There are four very large supermarkets within a 10-mile radius of Selkirk (two of them open 24 hours a day) and another soon to open in Kelso, as well as a variety of other specialist retailers.

Venues such as Bowhill House, the Eastgate Theatre in Peebles and the Wynd Theatre in Melrose regularly host very high quality musicals and other performances.

The cinema in Galashiels beams in live opera from the Met in New York every autumn and winter and is one of only four such facilities in the whole country to do so.

Moreover, every Border town has a very strong community spirit, expressing itself both in sporting and cultural ways.

“Rural idyll”, you say – the Borders has, in fact, taken some very hard knocks over the years, resulting in the gradual destruction of its key industries, through no fault of its own. Its existence and welfare is too often ignored by the Central Belt.

Therefore, to use the phrase “gainful employment” in such a way as to suggest that Borderers are malingerers or unwilling to look for work is both ignorant and contemptible.

M D Taylor

Ettrick Terrace

Selkirk