I SEE the Gloster Boars are back in print with “I know better than you do” snorts about each other’s political views with the names of Newman and House added to by Ray, Price, Marjoram, Goddin, Bennetti etc.

Undeterred they stiffen their necks and pen their petty points of view.

But a rainbow of idealism from Karin Jarman has brightly coloured and enhanced the letters page for readers.

I attended a celebration of the demise of the Iron Curtain that took place on the Brooken sumit of a Hartz mountain.

Thousands of walkers from East and West climbed up to enjoy hot soup and happy hellos.

Then, believing I was following my party back off the top, I arrived in the eastern part at Ilseborg.

Everyone was so friendly and helped me to return to Duderstadt via Wernigerode by bus and taxi.

It was a beautiful moonlight night and the taxi driver fairly thrilled at remembering smidgens of English from his pre-war school English days.

A notable difference between East and West Germany was the use of paint.

In our twin town of Duderstadt, where we were based, the prominent trading and government buildings were smart with fresh paint, whereas in Wernigerode there was a noticeable lack of provision of communist paint.

I grew up in a small town in Sussex, and moved to the small town of Stroud when I married almost 50 years ago.

My maternal grandmother, a staunch socialist and councillor on planning in the 1930s fought for the purchase of the Sackville Estate when it came up for sale, and moved to have many council houses built in our town.

Then the Labour Government capped rents sometime after WW2.

A death knoll.

Council houses in Stratford Road that started at 10 shillings a week for a nice semi-detached were costing only 50 pence per week to residents in the 1970s and up to Mrs Thatcher’s so called unpopular bill.

Politics is a roller coaster, and the people who pay to ride it fund the controller.

Molly Roberts

Stroud