Published: Thursday, 31st December, 2009 8:00am

Snow letters

by Correspondent

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PLEASE may I thank, through your newspaper, all the people who helped the ambulance staff who were taking my husband and me home from the Royal Berkshire Hospital on Monday, December 21?

We left RBH at 2.10pm and arrived home in Caversham Heights nearly six hours later because of the snow.

Many people joined together to push the ambulance over Caversham Bridge and then, when we had to abandon the ambulance in Church Road, the two lady officers of a stranded Reliance Prison van volunteered to help our marvellous ambulance crew push and pull us, in wheelchairs, up St Peter's Hill and to the far end of Upper Warren Avenue, over a mile of uphill and down!

Another three volunteers assisted and we received many other offers of help from people we met on the way.

The bad weather brought out the very best of community spirit, for which we shall always be grateful.

None of the six would accept even a cup of tea, so please thank everyone who enabled us to get home safely, if adventurously!

JB, Caversham

- MAY I express through your paper our extreme gratitude and appreciation to the many people who have helped us over the last few days and on Monday, December 21, in particular.

For example, to the lady on Tilehurst Road who brought out cups of tea for our driver and passengers and who let a passenger use her toilet; to the young people on Peppard Road who helped to push the bus up the hill; likewise to those on Silver Street and elsewhere in the town; to those on Lower Henley Road who gave the driver and passengers water and chocolate to keep them going; to the resident in Boult Street for digging out a stranded bus; and to all the others in countless examples of selfless generosity of spirit in a time of need.

Everyone was magnificent, thank you. You helped to keep spirits up and to enable the drivers to eventually get everyone home safely.

Our drivers and office staff, too, were heroes that day, with 11 buses and over 50 passengers caught up in the mayhem and with some passengers on the bus for over eight hours.

It is in times of need that true spirit shines through. What wonderful people there are in Reading.

Peter Absolon, General Manager, ReadiBus

'Plea for street help was ignored'

- READING Borough Council's management of the severe weather conditions over the last weeks must be the subject of a public enquiry.

Let us not be fooled by the RBC concentrating attention on their reaction to the gridlock immediately before Christmas.

Reading's roads and pavements, to an unprecedentedly high level, remained dangerous and untreated for the duration of the extreme weather. In all my travels around Reading, at all hours, neither I, nor any of my friends and family, witnessed any attempt by RBC to remedy dangerous pavements and roads at any time over the last two weeks.

No doubt we will hear from RBC that their other road clearing responsibilities and financial restrictions had their part to play.

We will hear that gritting and salting occurred late at night or early in the morning.

We might hear that the weather conditions were a once in 25 year event (surely what contingency planning is intended to cope with).

What we won't hear is why the vast majority of Reading residents were exposed to a town with very dangerous roads and pavements for nearly two weeks.

The cul-de-sac where I live, 250m long, containing a large health clinic, chemist and double GP surgery, an infant/primary school and a community centre, remained completely unattended by council staff for two weeks. Residents had tried with spades and brooms. Residents, school and surgery had contacted RBC (a week before the town centre gridlock) begging for assistance. Nothing.

Ray Bailey

Milman Road, Reading