I AM somewhat surprised that Gerald Morgan found my little bit of Forest dialect unintelligible.

Being a born and bred native of Lydbrook when it was still a traditional hard-working Forest working class industrial community, I would have thought that a man of his obvious intelligence could understand it without any difficulty and the serious message behind it.

Why does he think that the Forest of Dean vote for war in Iraq and why did it vote for war in Syria?

Excuse me Mr Morgan, but where is the intelligence behind that question? I don't recall going into a voting booth recently and putting a big X next to 'Do you want to go to war in Syria and beat up an evil Dictator? say Yes!'

In a democracy, people are allowed to vote for whom they see fit, whether the rest of us agree with their choice or not. This vote comes around every few years and between those elections the way our elected MP votes is out of our personal control. If enough of us don't like that MPs decisions or politics, we are entitled to vote that MP out as our representative. That's how it works Gerald, but surely you must know that? It's not naivety, it's reality. Why do you always endeavour to insult us because nobody voted for you?

As for those in the dreaming spires and ivory towers of Oxford and Dublin Universities not being impressed by the old Forest dialect, well, why should we in the Forest care?

They can carry on living in their rarified intellectual bubbles and the rest of us in the lower orders can carry on living in our outside, everyday mundane world of talking sheep.

John Belcher

Berry Hill