FEW people will not have heard of the hell-fire conflagration that has decimated nearly 25 per cent of the city of Fort McMurray, in Alberta, Canada, displacing almost 100,000 residents at least seven hours drive south of their former homes. If they still have one that is.

How many people in Scotland realise they, too, have been affected? Probably very few, yet with nearly one million barrels of oil per day not being processed by Suncor’s tar sands refining facilities, this production slump has had a direct impact on global oil supply prices, translating into additional pennies at Scottish fuel pumps and in our central heating tanks.

Most of us will ken at least one person with direct ties to Alberta, be they relatives, friends or close family, but few will consider that if everyone in Aberdeen knew only one person in Fort McMurray, they would fill the city to the brink. Close your eyes and picture the whole of Aberdeenshire, from the Lecht to the sea and Banff to Inverbervie, engulfed in a roaring inferno, flames rolling overhead, trees crashing on top of our cars and summerhouses, terrified red deer herds stampeding down our villages avenues, children unable to breathe in the thick, particulated, toxic smoke, farms and crops now just a greasy smear on the charred earth.

Now you begin to grasp a Deesiders’ perspective of the scale of things as they are in Alberta – and this has been under way for a month.

I grew up in Canada and lived for many years in the northern Alberta “bush”, so have direct experience forest fires. My brother, now a senior forestry professor at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton, was a “smoke jumper” in his younger days so we know first hand how devastating these blazes can be. We have both lost friends and colleagues to wildfires. We accept it is part of living in Canada’s wilderness but, even so, I have been astonished at the scope of what Albertans call The Beast and moved by the strength, bravery and stubborn will of my former countrymen and their rescuers.

Cheered (jeered?) on by fellow campers on the NorthCoast 500 Independence Convoy, I marched down the Clachtoll Beach campsite strand clad in only my Alberta flag, sang “Oh, Canada”, saluted, about-faced and strode into the Atlantic. I emerged to a warm towel, loud applause, two large drams and a saucepan full of coins and notes.

This morning I sent £302 to the Canadian Red Cross Alberta Fire Appeal. I figure a few minutes of personal discomfort were worth it. To to all those who cheered me on, it is Alberta’s fire victims and their rescuers you should cheer. They are the real heroes.

Carol Hutton, Strathdon

MY late mother and her siblings were brought up by my widowed grandmother in the early years of the 20th century in the shadow of Dixon’s Blazes in the Gorbals.

As the family moved into their teens they got jobs and moved upmarket to “posh” Govanhill. Many years later as a young child I remember Govanhill as a lovely area. There were tiled closes and beautiful wrought-iron fences around most entrances.

Wrought-iron fences all over Glasgow were subsequently removed by order from London in what proved to be an utterly useless contribution to the war effort. The “wally” closes were badly damaged by anti-air raid heavy buttressing. After the war years came Labour councils which decided the highly effective ash deafening between the flats was dangerous and ripped it out so that everyone could listen to everyone else’s telly.

My heart goes out to Govanhill, so much a part of Glasgow and I sincerely hope the Scottish government can reverse the current situation.

Alan Clayton, Strachur

THERE has been much coverage in recent day of Jim Sillars’ anti-EU views, including his claims that the SNP’s position doesn’t add up. In my view it is some of Jim Sillars’ claims on the EU which simply don’t add up, and I fear he is being given column inches and airtime based on the position in Scottish politics that he once had in order to attack the SNP and by extension the independence movement.

Mr Sillars claims that if an independent Scotland was to apply to join the EU, it would be rebuffed, and I quote “as it was in 2014”. Call me Mr Pedantic but while various bigwigs within the EU said that would be the case (President Barroso springs to mind) the EU as an organisation was never asked the question directly, because that privilege is retained by the UK Government. They refused to ask it out of fear of what the answer would be, so Scotland was never rebuffed at any time, and the question remains unanswered.

Mr Sillars also claimed a Brexit vote would not a trigger for a second independence referendum as this was not specifically stated in the 2016 manifesto. I’m pretty certain that the term “significant and material change in circumstances” kind of covers that, unless Mr Sillars believes Scotland being taken out of the EU if it votes to Remain is insignificant and immaterial.

As someone who has voted for the No2EU party in the past, I am more than receptive to arguments about why the EU is failing and why it may be impossible to reform it from within. However, I would like those arguments to be honest arguments, not inaccurate ones which are voiced for short-term gain which will no doubt be used both now and in future by those forces opposed to Scottish independence.

James Cassidy, Airdrie

A NUMBER of readers and others continue to highlight the apparent paradox of Scotland wishing to be independent of the UK while remaining a member of the EU, the latest being Julia Panell (Letters, May 31) and Jim Sillars (Sillars defends his dissent over EU).

Of course these individuals are entitled to their opinions, but they remain in the minority in the wider independence movement. I concede there is much to be concerned about in the neo-liberal, globalised world we inhabit. However, I’m not sure how much influence we will be able to wield on the final shape of the CETA and TTIP deals Ms Panell is concerned about from outside the EU, and it is fanciful to believe these deals will have no impact on our lives were we to leave it.

I believe greater involvement of an independent Scotland in European and world affairs will allow us to contribute our views and will do much to enhance Scotland’s status, while reinforcing our national identity on a wider stage.

It suits Jim Sillars now to denigrate the level of influence Scotland would have within the EU. He has less to say about how much influence Scotland would have outside it. And it’s changed days from 1988, when Jim Sillars, on behalf of the SNP, launched the slogan “Independence in Europe”.

Douglas Turner, Edinburgh

BITTER divisions within the Tories over Europe reached breaking point over the weekend and on Monday, Bill Cash claimed the Remain campaign has “been engaged in monumentally misleading propaganda” before warning it had only “a very, very short time in which to correct all this”. Sir Gerald Howarth, a former defence minister under Cameron, said, “Either they [Remain] change the tone of their campaign to recognise the profound and deep-seated patriotism that we feel or they will reap the whirlwind.”

None of these MPs has ever got upset about the untruths disgorged by Cameron on all manner of subjects, but now they are suddenly bothered. Eurosceptic MPs don’t give two hoots about honesty in public debate, they are only really interested in serving their own personal self-interest.

Euroscepticism is a disease of the Tory right-wing and the equally barmy Ukip. The people backing Brexit include John Redwood, Nigel Farage, Daniel Hannan, Bill Cash, Norman Lamont, Paul Nuttall, Neil Hamilton and Jacob Rees-Mogg, a rouges galley gallery that espouse a form of extreme Thatcherism that views the EU as the only restraint to a corporate takeover.

Alan Hinnrichs, Dundee



Letters I: We have way to halt these deportations threats to the Brains and the Monongos