Hell hath no fury...!

NOT many in our office are as long in the tooth as myself, but I remember back in the early to mid-1970s we carried what we thought was a controversial news report into the support agriculture was to get that year from the then Common Market. We expected a heated response.
Sure enough, there was a delegation at the door of our offices in York St, Glasgow, first thing the following Monday. But they were not there about the important matter of agricultural support.
That same week, The SF had carried a small ‘name and address supplied’ letter regarding a judge’s performance at Neilston Show – and just about the entire show committee turned up to demand the name of the author of this letter.
Fast forward some 40 years to our January 23 issue: There were plenty of controversial stories and opinions relating to mainstream agriculture, from land reform, to ScotGov ineptitude, along with some strong remarks from our Farmer’s View writer Jim Walker.
From all this, nary a response, yet the Letters to the Editor file this week is full to the brim and will, inevitably, overflow in to next week.
And the subject of this stushie which has driven so many to respond, was our story of the ‘rebellion’ over the dropping of the word ‘Rural’ from what is evidently a far from douce organisation, namely the Scottish Women’s Institute.
Some letters were in support of the ‘rebellion’, while others (the majority so far) were in favour of the changes being currently implemented. The quality of letters ranged from the rationale to the venomous, with two even suggesting that The SF had joined the ‘Gutter Press’ in actually printing the story.
All this reminded me of a comment made by Scotland’s former First
Minister, Jack McConnell, that he was infinitely more terrified to speak to his local (as it was then SWRI) than he was to address the Parliament in Holyrood.
These women didn’t care who was speaking to them, they would go for anyone’s jugular, was the gist of his opinion.