Letters: Our obsession with positivity is exhausting! Why is grief still such a taboo?

Responses to H is for Hawk star Claire Foy on talking about grief 

You don’t get over grief. It changes you, you become a new version of yourself. A stronger, more empathic version…and you carry it with you.

Liz Saville, Facebook

You find a way to live with it. I don’t think anyone expects you to “get over it” if you’ve lost someone you deeply love. I cry all the time thinking about my beloved cat who died about a year ago.

Angela Mitchell, Facebook

I’ve experienced grief in recent years and again just a few months ago and I was shocked at how taboo it still is! Like a lot of our emotions seem to be. The obsession with being positive is exhausting! Life’s all about duality – life AND death.Looking forward to watching this.

Loving Life in Wellies, Facebook

We don’t talk about it because all this “culture” cares about is for people to be “productive”, and grieving people aren’t. 

Vlad Bourceanu, Facebook

Responses to Steve Coogan’s views on Reform

I’m sick of repeating myself. Just had an argument about it yesterday. The thought of the Reform party is bad enough. The thought that other people outside of their horrible clique think that their policies are a good idea is so shocking to me. I believe that most people are good people so I don’t understand why anyone would support an obvious fascist ideal. It beggars belief!

Del Fitzsimons, Facebook

Don’t worry about Reform when Labour are destroying the country.

Paulgking20, Instagram

They are not anti-human rights, they are anti the ECHR because it works against us and protects our enemies. We will have our own human rights bill instead.

Chadwick_richard, Instagram

Utter nonsense. I’m not a Reform voter but I might just vote Reform; let the new guys have a shot.
They can’t be worse than Labour or the Tories.

The_chronic_ash, Instagram

They’ve constantly said they want to take us out of the ECHR, but their supporters still say they’re not going to take our human rights. You couldn’t make it up.

Dan Owens, Facebook

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Troubled waters

I read your article on how to fix Britain’s water problem but I don’t think you realise what the basis of the problem is. You talk about more reservoirs and dam schemes to hold back water so the sewage works don’t get overwhelmed when it rains. 

But the basic fact is that in much of the country, much of the water that falls on our roofs and roads, especially in cities towns and villages, instead of running through separate pipes to our streams and rivers, runs through common pipes into our sewage system, hence overwhelming it.

There needs to be a national programme of separating our foul sewage which has to be treated, from a completely separate rainwater system.

The programme, which would mean digging up roads to complete the separation already present in some areas, could be run by fit and able, clean-water-motivated volunteers, to massively cut costs. We need to stop the pollution where it starts and start thinking outside of the box to improve our country’s woes.

Alan

Hypocrite, opportunist

I just read John Bird’s column in Issue 1702. A brilliant exposure of the hypocrisy of Reform and before them, Enoch Powell who, as John points out, brought West Indians to Britain to promote his own career, then turned on them to promote his own career, just like everything Farage does is to promote his career.  Well done, John.

Merv Hughes, Cambridge

Doctored records

For most intersex people it wasn’t their parents that kept it from them, but the doctors at their birth. A lot of people have found out years after, like me. And it doesn’t help people using passive learning from school with a very basic information on human beings. 

We are all human and come with very different lives, it’s just a case of being respectful to each other. Learn each other’s stories.

Samantha Janey Thomas, Facebook

History repeats

Regarding your article about Social Housing Action Campaign, the idea of coordinated social housing alliances is not new.

Similar proposals were explored in the 1990s and early 2000s. What ultimately held these initiatives back
was a chronic shortage of sustainable funding and long-term central government support. If this latest iteration is to succeed progress will depend on secure funding, clearer accountability and genuine alignment between social housing providers, local authorities and the private sector.
Patrick Kneath CEO & founder, The Latest Homes

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