To Sir, with love

I had a letter published in the Daily Telegraph yesterday! I write to them several times a year (musings always pithy, witty and to the point of course!) but have only once before had one published. Yesterday’s offering read:

Sir - As J. P. Floru (Letters, May 5) believes that state funding through taxation for public transport is a bad idea because it means that those who choose not to use the rail system are still paying for it, I assume he believes that state funding for the National Health Service through taxation is a bad idea for the same reason. The fact is that the NHS relies on everyone's contributions, whether we use it or not, to enable it to be available when we need it. Likewise the rail system.

It’s a shame they edited out my last sentence, which basically was my whole point:

In fact if the rail network was subsidised by all of us through taxes the fares might be lowered enough for those not as wealthy as some to be able to afford to use it, thus getting more cars off the roads, reducing traffic congestion and cutting pollution.

Later that evening I had a phonecall from a bloke in the village who’d had his letter to the paper published on Friday! We shall have to start up the Kineton Telegraph Letter-writers Club.