Readers' letters: School names should reflect places

"For over 100 years City of Edinburgh schools are named after the district that they serve”

The new primary school being built on Canaan Lane in Morningside will house a total of 12 classrooms, two of which will be nursery playrooms.

School names should reflect places

Regarding the article by Mr Vineet Lal and the naming of the new Morningside Primary School, I feel that the school should not be named after an individual (News, August 5).

This goes against a practice that has been in place for over 100 years whereby City of Edinburgh schools are named after the district that they serve.

The last functioning school to be named after an individual was the Flora Stevenson Primary School, named after an Edinburgh lady who championed education (particularly for girls), social reform and women suffrage in the later decades of the 19th century.

The only other CEC schools named after individuals (apart from the Catholic schools named after saints) are James Gillespie’s and Drummond High Schools.

I can think of several Edinburgh teachers who dedicated sometimes 40 years of their lives to the education of Edinburgh youngsters and who served their communities well who would also merit consideration if the council were to change its policy.

Regardless of the achievements of an individual, to name a school after them is politicising that establishment. A school should not become identified with a political or social movement, however worthwhile.

As we have experienced recently in Edinburgh, an individual’s reputation can be re-judged by future generations. So suggestions such as North Morningside, Falcon, Tipperlinn, Braid (the school is on the boundary of the Braid Estate), Cluny or Canaan should be considered, not an individual

Eric Melvin, Cluny Place, Edinburgh.

It’s time Inglorious Twelfth was ended

Traditionally, the “Glorious Twelfth” – or the “Inglorious Twelfth”, as it should rightly be named – marks the start of the red grouse shooting season.

But this year, many estates have been forced to delay or even cancel the season after human-induced climate change saw unseasonably hard sleet and cold rain, resulting in fewer birds for hunters to blast out of the sky.

The irony is that moor management companies are themselves accelerating climate change. To stimulate the growth of heather shoots for young grouse to eat, landowners set fire to the moors – causing some 260,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change, to be emitted each year.

All this destruction so that a tiny minority of bloodthirsty people can wander through the British countryside gunning down sentient animals – it’s unconscionable. Let’s hope that one day soon, this arrogant tradition will be banned and that 12 August will come to represent progress and morality, rather than destruction and barbarism. Until then, the “Inglorious Twelfth” will remain a blemish on the UK.

Jennifer White, PETA Foundation, London N1.

Olympic harmony

The wonderful success of our Olympic team coming fourth over all in the medals table with 22 golds and 65 medals in all should make us all feel proud to be British, inspire each of us to achievement in our own lives and remind us that we are much better together.

Penny Patrience, Ingliston Road, Newbridge.

Fergie rethink

There was me thinking Sarah Ferguson being invited to Balmoral this summer was the start of a process which would see her and Prince Andrew remarry, thus bringing him back in from the cold as the 'good man' she says he is. Not now.

Judi Martin, Aberdeenshire.