I AM not sure which word sums up my feelings to recent weeks' articles and correspondence on the golly 'issue'.

Shame, sadness, anger. All can be applied to the response of some Herefordians to the timely and appropriate action by police in removing what are an insulting legacy of our colonial history. (Not a 'raid' or 'arrest' as your own comment decided to embroider the action with.)

Black and white people find toys that for years satirised the black person and legitimised denial of human dignity and civil rights as just not acceptable. Whether they were viewed, as in my childhood, as 'merely' a cuddly toy, does not excuse their insulting promotion now.

To find that Bromyard businessmen intend to embark on some sort of branding of the town as a result beggars belief in a post-apartheid world.

Please Bromyard, try to understand what it signals to our black community, friends and relatives. Do not play into the hands of the racist right-wing organisations (not unknown in Bromyard's political past). The only 'brand' you will get with the rest of the country will be one of shame and as a bastion of inhumanity.

EDDIE CLARK, branch secretary, Unison, East Street, Hereford.