No sanity in police language lessons

LETTER: Regarding the report in the Star on Wednesday "Officers' lessons on Polish phrases", now I know that there is no sanity in this country.

I do not want to believe that in today's climate, cutbacks everywhere, never a policeman to be seen, if you need one be prepared to wait hours, whatever the circumstances, that that headline can be true. If it is then I know that the lunatics have finally taken control of the asylum.

We are always being told that the burden of paperwork is keeping the police at their desks instead of on the streets doing what they should be doing, helping the public and preventing crime.

But that cannot be true, because now it seems they have so much spare time they are going to take Polish language lessons.

The Polish workers should be learning English. The fact is that they can in all probability speak perfectly acceptable English, and understand it as well.

But if they become involved with the police it is easier to get out of trouble by pretending that they do not know the language (I know because in 1979 I was a naughty young man enjoying himself in a foreign land).

In 1979 I went to work in Germany. I did not speak a word of German when I arrived, but I did not notice any of the German police rushing off to school to learn my language.

Did that upset me? Did I feel badly treated by our continental cousins? No, none of these things.

Nicholas Alwyn Cox

Oswestry