Terence Bickford suggests, reasonably enough, that the money spent on the proposed monument at Saltash might have been used for some facility benefiting local young people.

But he then appears to say that a Celtic cross would by a symbol of 'invaders' who oppressed the Cornish.

If that is really what he wrote then someone has taught him a very distorted version of history!

From around 1000 B.C., Cornwall has had a Celtic population, i.e. a Celtic way of life with a Celtic language, Cornish, which never completely fell out of use.

In other words, for the last three millenniums, the native Cornish have been direct descendants of the Celtic British who were here before Julius Caesar landed.

Only centuries later did the Saxons (or as we say now, 'English'), leave their homelands in today's Germany.

If we talk of invaders, the Saxons, between 700 and 900 A.D., were much more devastating for the Cornish than the Norman warrior-chiefs of 1066.

Incidentally, one of the finest Celtic Crosses, erected by the native Cornish, may be seen in Cardinham churchyard.

JULYAN HOLMES

St Keyne.