Clearly name and address supplied did not read my letter (Cornish Times 29th July) or he/she would never have assumed that I claimed racial abuse was either funny, harmless or innocent.
Indeed, I have close personal reasons to know better than most how evil it is.
We are not talking of racial issues, but of the effect on rural population when overwhelming numbers of richer townspeople move in.
It cannot be 'racist' for an Englishman from the Lake District or Dorset (the examples I gave) to call another Englishman by some abusive term, nor from our anonymous correspondents point of view for a Cornishman to call someone an 'emmet', since he is implying that the Cornish are English.
The problem is a recognised one which should be addressed.
Starter homes needed by young local families are snapped up by wealthier newcomers (that is not a racial term) as holiday homes are left to stand empty for most of the year. Some who come to settle have complained about church bells, or tractors passing their doors, or the crowing of cockerels! Again, this is not a racial problem but a social one, and it is a sign of deep unrest and the defensive attitude of local people in not only Cornwall but virtually any rural, and even many urban communities. It occurs even in Australia.
The heat is usually taken out of the situation when newcomers make the effort to fit in with local ways, as the best of them do. Surely we all agree that racial abuse is a dreadful thing, but that is not the issue here.
RICHARD GENDALL
Liskeard.