Prince Harry and Meghan should pay for their own security.H

As Mr Stenton writes, for many of us family comes first, though apparently not for Prince Harry and his wife. Surely it’s their primary responsibility to ensure security for themselves and their children, rather than expecting the Bank of Dad to step in.

From their chosen celebrity lifestyle, they’re clearly not short of a bob or two, and could easily afford to pay for private security protection here, as they do in the USA .

Also, Mr Stenton wonders how often Archie and Lilibet ask Prince Harry when they’ll see their grandpa.

But which of their grandpas would they be referring to?

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

More letters…

Alec Ross’s take on the demise of Scottish football (Letters, July 7) is, l believe, wide of the mark. The fundamental problem is we’ve neglected grassroots football and simply don’t produce quality players.

What have all these reviews, undertaken by Rinus Michels, Henry McLeish etc, produced?

A Schools of Excellence programme, now scrapped, that provided one player, Billy Gilmour, for the national team in a decade.

Also a pyramid league system heavily biased towards the status quo, producing little change.

Clubs must also shoulder part of the blame.

Their much-vaunted academies fail to give home talent an opportunity; they instead use foreign players or lower league players from England. We should have one unfragmented football association.

However, I doubt Chief Executive of the SPFL, Neil Doncaster, and the blazerati, with all their perks, will agree to this. It would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

So I suspect a number of years in the football wilderness lie ahead.

Roy Gardiner, Kilmarnock.

Victimhood mentality bad for sport

Alec Ross’s attempt to blame Scotland’s defeat by Brazil on the Union takes nationalist grievance to new depths of pathos.

Far from some downtrodden colony, Scotland freely chose to remain in the UK in 2014, a democratic verdict the nationalists still refuse to accept. No one “dictates” our language or culture; we speak, sing, and celebrate them daily without permission from Westminster.

Suggesting Norway’s Erling Haaland’s brilliance somehow proves Scotland’s colonial subjugation is embarrassing nonsense.

Many of us watched the matches proud of our flag, our players, and our country. Not as victims, but as equals in a successful Union.

Rather than the downtrodden, defeatist and subservient people portrayed by nationalists, we saw a confident and vibrant country on display.

The Scottish fans’ excellent behaviour, with bagpipes playing, street parties, and warm engagement with locals, earned global admiration and showcased the best of Scotland. Our flag was also reclaimed for the nation, no longer hijacked for the nationalist cause.

Scotland doesn’t need independence to win football matches; it needs to abandon the perpetual victimhood that excuses every setback.

The real “cringe” is this relentless politicisation of grievances to fuel separatist fantasy.

Ian Lakin, Aberdeen.

Destruction of landscape

In the process of making us dependent on the weather for our electricity, we are ignoring, or perhaps even accepting, the visual destruction of our fine Scottish landscape, and its effect on tourism.

We are also ignoring its effect on many members of the Highland population, now living under windmill power cables, or alongside transformers and sub-stations.

Nearly all of this industrialisation belongs to foreign consortia, producing expensive electricity on a part-time basis.

If our First Minister regards this as acceptable, he should perhaps listen to the people whose businesses and lives have been bighted by this crazy path to the future, in a UK that has rejected nuclear as a sensible way forward, and where Scotland is being used as a giant factory.

While we depend on a windy day, our nuclear and fossil-powered competitors steal our customers and we get poorer.

That’s the reality of what is now happening.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood.

Herr today

The dilemma: ascertaining the sex of the sender of an email whose name is Alex Smith, a problem posed by your correspondent Doug Maughan (Letters, July 7).

This could be easily resolved if Alex Smith prefaced the name with ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms/Miss/Mrs’.

However, there would still be a problem if Alex Smith was a ‘Dr’.

Even so, it would still be possible to haul order out of chaos if we adopted the German system of nomenclature. In the later stages of my career, I received communications – both written and oral from Swiss, German and Austrian colleagues – who gave me the salutation ‘Herr Prof Dr Ide’.

Christopher W Ide, East Renfrewshire.

A fish supper is tasty, though the price can often be pocket pummelling. (Image: Pixabay)

Cake price takes the biscuit

I’ve just found out where some of the wealthiest folk in Scotland must live: West Kilbride.

Our son kindly offered to take my wife and I for afternoon tea last Sunday, to one of the only cafes still open that day. Two others were closed. Another, as we entered, apologised for closing at 2pm. Business must be good.

Determined not to give up, we found a place open at the other end of town, so sat down and ordered. One small piece of cake each, two coffees (not large) and a soft drink: the bill presented was shocking, a few pence shy of £40 (including an optional ‘service’ charge of 12.5%).

Maybe the good residents of this seaside town can afford such prices, but visitors must be stunned.

A friend recently touring the Highlands, near Aviemore, told me that he and his wife were charged (in a not-too-posh restaurant) £46 for two fish suppers, no tea included.

No wonder they were the only customers. I told him next time to visit Saltcoats, where an award-winning cafe serves a ‘pensioners’ fish supper, including tea and bread and butter, for £7.50 per elderly head.

Saltcoats and West Kilbride are but four miles apart along the stretch of the North Ayrshire coast, though inflation seems to have risen to new heights in the latter.

NJ Hunter, Ardrossan.