SIR – I had a chuckle at Councillor Udall portrayed on the front page of the Worcester News, September 19, beneath the headline, ‘Stop ripping off our sauce.’
I wondered if Councillor Udall was old enough to remember beautifully fiery Worcestershire Sauce, because what has been sold for decades now might just as well be flogged as Worcestershire ditch water! The real fiery Worcestershire Sauce has passed into history.
The aroma of the Worcestershire Sauce from Lea and Perrins factory as it aged was wafted all over whatever parts of Worcester were downwind from the factory and when the factory caught fire and burned down we had a grandstand view although a mile or so away. Today I can’t even smell Worcestershire Sauce from outside the factory gate!
As I wrote some 15 years ago in a letter published by the Worcester News, today’s Worcestershire Sauce isn’t the the Worcestershire Sauce of my childhood. Then it took months to make and separated out into two distinct layers, once bottled. The top layer had a subtle flavour and was innocuous; the bottom layer contained the explosive fiery elements which when the bottle was shook, blended with the top layer to produce Worcestershire Sauce’s classic delights, which are no more. In my day every child was told Don’t shake the bottle! Only when you got to your teens did you get to enjoy the real Full Monty of Worcestershire Sauce. It was wonderful. Glorious!
We have all lost a product that was truly iconic in the world and sadly only my generation can remember its gastronomic glories!
N TAYLOR 
Worcester

The EU is destroying democracy in Europe
SIR – In Europe, the EU experiment has broken its contract with the countries stupid and anti democratic enough to sign up to it, since under the auspices of the bullying Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor and one of the principal engineers of the EU experiment, Europe’s external border has been thrown open to African and middle-eastern migrants –most of whom are economic migrants, not Syrian refugees. The deal between countries stupid enough to join the EU club (ie those countries in western Europe, since they were the only ones with so much to lose), was to agree to open internal borders, but a closed external border. Merkel has unilaterally cast that agreement aside, and incentivised refugees and economic migrants to make their way to Germany. It was hardly a surprise to anyone with a functioning cerebellum therefore, that the ‘migrant crisis’ should result. Now Merkel has the temerity to demand that we all take a share of the influx she created, and our spineless politicians do nothing to challenge her.
Adding to that, the EU leaders (I’m stifling a snigger) then offer no assistance to external border areas, to ensure order and security, so that appropriate checks can be made, and lack any backbone in respect of turning the economic migrants around, especially since Merkel invited them all.
The EU is an undemocratic, unrepresentative farce, and the only countries to gain substantially from it are those in the east. In western European nations like the UK, we suffer unlimited immigration from the most impoverished, under developed, crime-ridden, former communist countries , and as we all know, the UK actually pays the EU Brussels club in the region of £55 million a day for the ‘privilege’ of membership... not forgetting of course, all the additional benefits paid out to hundreds of thousands of eastern European workers and unemployed alike.
The UK is slowly being destroyed at the hands of the liberal elite, who played no part in the sacrifices, courage, and ingenuity of our forefathers, whose endeavours made our nation great. Like spoilt children, they give up so easily that which others have paid for, and they deliberately avoid any mandate for the madness from those they pretend to represent. Look away everyone, democracy’s taking her last breath.
WILL RICHARDS
Malvern

Beware of the dangers of shopping centres
SIR – I had cause to visit Walsall Town Hall the other day, which took me through the Town Centre on foot. Good grief, even the charity shops were boarded up.
I’ve no doubt that like other West Midland towns it was once a thriving place until the huge nearby retail park opened some years ago now.
Please Worcester City Council, think very carefully before allowing any retail development that is not within the city. In fact, don’t, unless you want our city to suffer the same fate as others.
C D LEE
Worcester

It is a migrant crisis, not a flood of refugees
SIR – Reference migrant crisis – you tell us what you think, Monday, September 21.
What an interesting response to this question.
I fully agree with the majority of those letters, in particular the letter from R Knight.
The definition of a refugee is ‘a person taking refuge abroad to escape persecution’.
The definition of a migrant is ‘ one who wishes to change their abode’.
A proportion it seems of these people are migrants, and not refugees.
We are a small nation compared to some other European nations, so why should we receive equal numbers of these people as suggested by some members of the EU.
MRS W MASON
Worcester