Sir, - It has been brought to my attention that certain letters printed in your paper from Olive Travers, a senior clinical psychologist from Ballyshannon, claim that the parents of the children who attend Holy Cross Primary school (including myself) are traumatising our children by escorting them to their school along the normal route which has been used for over 32 years since the school was built.
The fundamental point that Ms Travers needs to realise is that it is not the parents who are subjecting the children to this daily horrific abuse, but the UDA-influenced rent-a-mob. Few are actually from the Glenbryn area, as can be seen when we look at the addresses of the eight people charged by the RUC in relation to trouble in that area. It makes me angry to read statements from people so detached from the reality of the true situation that they make unfair accusations and point an ill-informed finger at the wrong source.
Solely from a practical viewpoint, the so-called alternative route that the loyalists are trying to force the children to use throws up all sorts of problems. There is a detour of three-quarters-of-a-mile past a main road. The procession would pass through the same Protestant area around the back of St Gabriel's Intermediate School onto a grassy slope leading to a mucky football pitch and sneak in the back door of our own school.
Is Ms Travers saying that every time some bigoted group anywhere blocks a road to school, work or leisure facility, the injured party should simply slink away quietly tail between legs, so dooming the next generation to the same fate as their own?
I agree with Father Joe McVeigh that it is not good psychology to give in to bullies because they will bully even more and it is through support from him and others like him that we take strength. No matter how much Ms Travers thinks that we, as "emotionally blunted" parents are traumatising our children, we know that not one child of ours will ever in the future be found spitting, throwing stones, spouting filthy language or oozing hatred towards any Primary One infant of any religion - Yours, etc.,
Brendan Mailey, Right to Education Group, Brompton Park, Belfast 14.