LETTERS Spitalfields crofters
Sir: I am astonished that Charles Clover (Prince Charles in Spitalfields', 11 July) should attribute to Stoke Newington 'a kind of hopeless delinquency, exclusively public (and neglected) housing, poor education and unemployment'. For his information this is a lower-middle-class suburb of mostly Victorian housing stock whose prices have doubled in the last two years.
On a more serious point, the Prince of Wales appears to be inconsistent in his response to poverty. Among the crofters of the Hebrides he relishes the simple life, sharing their arduous chores and sleeping in a primitive bed. But in Spitalfields he finds the hard work and meagre housing altogether too depressing. One wonders how the two groups would compare on conventional indicators of social wellbeing: cash income; access to education, medical treatment and public transport; health and life expectancy; alcoholism; social mobil- ity; diet; per capita acquisition of tele- phones, televisions and motorcars, and so on.
While he was in Spitalfields the Prince should have asked the residents if they would prefer to be living on Hebridean crofts. He might have been surprised by the answer.
Marlyn Partridge 111 Clissold Crescent, London N16 PS. I wrote to you 18 months ago to argue that the recently privatised British Tele- com, impelled by the profit motive, would 'sod the public' even more vigorously than its torpid predecessor. You didn't print my letter. The joke's on you.
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