Wearily I pick up a pen to nit-pick over a sub-editing error (TES, November 29). I come from the Glamorganshire valleys and so keenly turned to the article headed “A sense of pride for the children of the valleys”.
I found an interesting article by Michael Prestage about the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s Proud to Present scheme, but nothing about my home patch. The sub-editor had glibly used “valleys” as a synonym for Wales, in the way, I suppose, that “highlands” is used for Scotland.
Attention to developments in Wales is unreservedly welcome in a London-based publication such as The TES. However, to anyone familiar with Wales the term “valleys” has a specific geographic meaning. Although adjacent, the Vale and the Valleys fall on different sides of a historic, socio-economic divide as well as a topographical one and have for centuries defined themselves in contrast to each other.
To anyone with knowledge of Welsh affairs, describing the Vale as the Valleys is an elementary blunder comparable to confusing two opposites.
There may be hundreds of valleys outside the Valleys but there are none in the Vale. I hope that’s clear!
RUSSELL WALTERS Conservative PPC, Islwyn, 55 Belvedere Court, Upper Richmond Road, Putney London SW15
