SIR – Having put off bothering the GP, I finally rang my local surgery early one morning for an appointment. We are certainly not called patients for nothing. On Tuesday, because the out-of-date NHS IT system failed, I was queuing for an hour and a half in the cold among 80- and 90-year-olds for the actual jab. SIR – Last week I was in a queue for more than half an hour on the phone to book a Covid booster jab. In the practice I attend, out of 12 GPs who worked there for more than six months, only two were full time. SIR – It is hardly surprising that patients are having difficulty obtaining face-to-face appointments with their GP ( Letters, April 26), when so many doctors are only working part time. To jail the man is excessive in my professional view, and symptomatic of poor knowledge of river systems. Even so, these will probably reinstate themselves over several years. There will be no permanent damage to the river, though of course there will be no trees on the land area. The silted spawning gravels will clear as river flows vary and the organisms that are drifting naturally downstream will re-colonise the habitat, probably within months or sooner. The common factor in all such work is the natural recovery process of the habitat and the flora and fauna within the reach. In my early years with river boards, I saw long lengths of river dredged in a similar fashion to improve the drainage of low-lying farmlands, and the protection of whatever lived in the river was a secondary consideration to economic necessity. SIR – As a river ecologist for more than 60 years I have witnessed damage to rivers and their ecosystems from many sources, ranging from individual houses to farms to large industries.Ĭlearly John Price, the farmer involved in the recent river dredging incident (Letters, April 26), was doing something necessary for the human community, and there is no doubt that he damaged the ecosystem of the river reach, albeit temporarily. Just because neglected female artists of merit, such as Artemisia Gentileschi and Berthe Morisot, are being given their rightful prominence, works by great male artists should not be sold off or left to languish in storage, in case they disturb modern, fragile or atheistic sensitivities. It is now quite common to find precious wall space in galleries taken up with Post-it notes and other ephemeral trivia, while beautiful works of art that do not tick the right boxes are confined to storage and can be viewed only on request as though they were obscene. SIR – That councillors in Oxford are considering selling off “inappropriate” Biblical art ( report, March 31) should not come as a surprise. The purpose of a museum is to display the best (and perhaps worst) artefacts of all ages – contextualised if necessary – for viewers’ evaluation, who should not be hectored by the “authorities”. I had hoped that my alma mater had largely avoided succumbing to cancel culture, thanks to more mature counsel than appears available to the museum. SIR – The Fitzwilliam Museum may have unwittingly done a service to Sir Stanley Spencer, for the coverage of its decision to withdraw his painting will introduce his work to a new audience. Great art, by definition, is meant to challenge, provoke discussion and change – not be safely hidden from view. It is sad that works of art are now censored by those with agendas who have the arrogance to think that the viewing public are unable to make their own judgments. I had not seen Love Among the Nations before, but to me it shows nothing but warmth and affection – what the title suggests. Perhaps no one has painted texture better since Holbein, and Spencer’s landscapes of the Berkshire countryside have never been bettered. I have no doubt he viewed all people in the same way. That each welder and riveter had the individual pattern of his clothing and the detail of the soles of his boots lovingly recorded showed how the artist celebrated ordinary people. His compassion for humanity is obvious in his shipbuilding on the Clyde cycle, which I was fortunate to view at Chatham Dockyard. Many found his work challenging, but Spencer always brought an almost saintly aspect to it. There were many proficient artists, both professional and amateur, but the club centred on Stanley Spencer and as a small girl I met him at exhibitions. My parents were founder members of the Cookham and Cookham Dean Arts club, started in the 1940s. SIR – You report ( April 26) that the University of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum has removed Sir Stanley Spencer’s painting on the subject of multicultural free love from display, after previously saying it is “racist”.
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