I READ with interest the letter from Marcus and Tania Stone (June 18) regarding the loss of the Turpin Rides Again column.

As also an avid Press reader, albeit in Leeds - to some people foreign parts - I enjoyed the Turpin page and was happy that a "parochial individual" was given prominence in your "parochial" newspaper - hence the name Yorkshire Evening Press.

If the Stones do not like reading "parochial" matters, what next I wonder? The loss of Street Talk? No more references to York City FC or the Minster library debate?

If the Stones do not wish to read such "parochial" matters, perhaps they should arrange to receive copies of the London Evening Standard (parochial rag if ever I read one) or was it the Essex Bugle that graced their doorstep before they relocated to York?

Incomers to our city should try to assimilate into the ways of the local populace and not seek to interfere with our lives or lifestyles.

Turpin was, and is, a folk hero and his spectre should remain.

Their suggestion that Turpin be replaced by a gardening feature fills me with dread and horror.

There is enough of this on television - or do they regard Yorkshire TV as too parochial to watch?

Colin Hardcastle,

Holtdale Road,

Leeds.

Updated: 10:43 Monday, June 23, 2003