Here is a transcript of the letter
WICK - A FILTHY HELLHOLE OF A TOWN
Sir - On Sunday i had a stroll along the nicely laid out picnic area to the south side of the wick river.
My intention had ben to take photographs of mallards, teal and widgeon that have inhabited the sandbars in increasing numbers during the winter months ever since the groynes were installed and the river returned to a samblance of it's natural state.
I finally actually finnished up taking pictured of trees, plants and a few of the rooks nest building.
I did manage video clips of ducks in their thousands flying over the Bilbster/Watten area but they were too far away to identify individually, even with the high magnification of the camcorder.
There were only a few ducks at the sand bars but they were resting mostly out of sight in the grassy areas.
What i did see close up was the most disgusting mass of dumped rubbish covering a once beautiful area.
Even the barrel of the old cannon (for signal which my grandfather, Kenneth McLennan, had once fired) and it's wooden base were absolutely plastered with paint and graffiti.
I have to say it, and i do mean it, however reluctently: Wick does not deserve public monies to be spent on it, as it is definately the filthiest hellhole of a town i have come accross in my 67 years.
Even the poorest of peoples i met abroad took a great deal of pride in keeping even the dry earth their corrugated iron dwellings and wood huts spotlessly clean, but Wick? it's a total mess - and that does not include the streets clarted with dogs faeces! if any clouded brain councillor tries to tell me otherwise he/she is talking through a hole in their head.
How the youth of a town like Wick, and their parents who allow them, can destroy so much that is done for them is just about beyond belief.
I have seen increasing destruction going on, generation after generation with wayward offspring copying their parents ineptitude, and our local authorities refusing to do anything to combat them.
The pseudo intellectuals continually give us the spin that is all due to a "lack of amenities", Rubbish! any desert or bare mountainous area provides space for happy kids to enjoy themselves.
Here it is just a case of plain wanton destruction by miserable, lead brained, anti social cretins who allow themselves to wholly taken in by the disease of cultural demise that has crept in from the south over the past five decades without any local authority taking the slightest action to curb that behaviour.
In Canada and other countries on-the-spot fines insure that cities are kept spotless, and their peoples have become proud of that cleanliness.
In Scotland we get nothing! it's as though those in authority intend only to collect their inflated salaries and can see no further responsibilities.
Will the Highland Council ever accept it's responsibilities and get down to cleaning up the town, doing so without relying upon volunteers like the rotary club, etc., having to do it for them?
Lets for once see perpetrators procecuted and the message sent out that enough is enough. Could the council and the northern constabulary give us back a town for which we can begin to feel pride?
Signed
Robert Sinclair Shand
Never a truer word has been said, Mr Shand i applaud you
PS - And i dont agree with him cos i'm an old duffer living on memories of the good ole days, i'm 31years old and agree with him as he is 100% correct
Oh, and if iv'e made any mistakes in the transcripit i appologise, i'm really tired today and the old brain is in 4th gear
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