Bridport strikes back
Sir: A scurrilous article recently appeared in your paper entitled 'The Bridport dagger' (1 October) under the name of a Richard West.
1 am suprised that the Spectator has sunk so low as to publish what is clearly unverified tittle-tattle concerning West Dorset, its comprehensive schools and those that work in them. To say that Brid- port and Beaminster are hated rivals is the reverse of the truth. The two schools run a link programme to share their resources for the sixth form. To blackguard the youth of West Dorset in the way he does shows Mr West is totally out of touch with reality.
As Chairman of the Governors of the Colfox Comprehensive School at Bridport I know the quality of our youth, and as Chairman of the Bridport bench I know the share of our youth that become 'surly and loutish, Hell's Angels and potential gangsters'.
On two of the only three days that I was required to sit in the juvenile court in Brid- port in 1982 the court was cancelled because there were no offenders.
You do your paper a disservice in publishing such utter nonsense and lower- ing the tone of what up to now has been a respectable newspaper.
W. J. Colfox
Symondsbury House, Bridport, Dorset
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