IS the handsome building that is the Sir John Maxwell School in Bengal Street, Pollokshaws, simply to be left to rot and die ("Can campaigners save Maxwell school?", The Herald June 10)? Any of us might think so, given that for decades now, it has stood derelict, apparently forgotten by Glasgow City Council.

Built in 1907 of red sandstone ashlar from Locharbriggs Quarry in Dumfriesshire, the school was the gift of Sir John Stirling Maxwell of Pollok, 10th baronet, and noted local philanthropist.

I have an interest to declare: I am an alumnus of the old place, a prize-winner in the session 1950-51. And I’m proud of my old school. Even as a small boy, I delighted in the handsome architecture of the place inside and out.

There is little enough of historic Pollokshaws left. The burgh subsumed by Glasgow in 1912 bore a mediaeval street pattern, callously rubbed out by the township being named by Glasgow Corporation in 1959 as one of 13 so-called Comprehensive Development Areas. Outcome? The town was flattened.

It was a mistake then, and it’s been a mistake since, to have treated The Shaws thus. This is a community whose history goes back certainly to July 8, 1546, and mention of “the landis of Pollokschewis” in the Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland.

The few larger buildings left of any note are Pollokshaws Burghs Halls of 1897 (as with the school the gift of Sir John), Pollokshaws West Station (erected in 1847 for the Glasgow, Barrhead & Neilston Railway), and the school. The fine Pollokshaws Baths of 1920 were demolished 20 years ago.

Even the adjoining children’s playground, where the swings were notable for their elaborate cast-iron frames, has vanished.

Civic inaction is actively causing Sir John’s gift to fall apart. Civic obfuscation is denying any constructive future for the building.

What is this plague that Glasgow city fathers (and mothers) bring down on Pollokshaws? The imprisonment of the landmark Round Toll of 1820 on a traffic roundabout at the bottom of Barrhead Road stands as an appropriate metaphor for careless and thoughtless municipal disregard for Pollokshaws.

Gordon Casely, Crathes.

IS THIS ART OR ABOMINATION?

AM I alone in thinking the “mixed media work” depicting Captain America holding the severed head of Saddam Hussein ("Around the UK", The Herald, June 16) is an abomination? I suppose it could just as easily have been Muammar Gaddafi’s head instead the fantasy figure was holding. In many ways the “art” is a fitting metaphor for the times we live in and the USA’s “might is right” policy where it interferes at will violently anywhere is wants to on the globe and has done so for a century.

I wonder what kind of reception a similar oeuvre would receive if Saddam’s head was replaced by that of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping or that nice man from North Korea, would that still be art? An investigative journalist, an American citizen, was chopped to bits in a Saudi Embassy in Turkey, maybe that could be turned into an art installation? What a horrible world we live in.

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

THE CONTEMPT FOR THE ELDERLY

MY mother is in her eighties. This new world seems to have no respect for people such as her. They lived through wars and rationing. They are now forgotten members of society. No one wants to accommodate them, or their ways, or lack of being able to use information technology.

They have to have bank cards which they find hard to use. They are used to bank books. Everything they now have to deal with has to be done online when many don’t have computers or even broadband. All of these things are alien to them. To ask people in their eighties sand older to get up to date with technology seems bizarre to me.

Recently my mother was asked to travel from Glasgow to Inverclyde Royal Infirmary for an outpatient appointment; she was asked to attend alone. How is she expected to get there?

We live in a world of racism, and various other isms. Yet it appears the elderly are now the lowest in the ranking, in concern or care.

Lisa McLemon, Glasgow.

CONCENTRATE COOKING INITIATIVE ON S5

I NOTE your report on improving Glasgow's diet ("Every Glasgow pupil ‘should be taught how to make a pot of soup by age 12’", The Herald June 15). I was a Home Economics teacher and it is my understanding that every 12-year-old would have been taught to make vegetable soup in S1. The pupils loved it, but I would question the relevance of the skills taught to pupils of that age. I suggest practical cooking and healthy eating are made compulsory in S5/6 because evidently it is wasted on S1/2.

Andrea Christie, Glasgow.

EXTRA SNEAKY

R RUSSELL Smith (Letters, June 16) omits one salient point from his memories of Rangers v Moscow Dynamo. At one point in the second half, the Russians contrived to have 12 men on the pitch, an indiscretion pointed out to the referee by Rangers inside- forward Torry Gillick.

No red or yellow cards in those days.

David Miller, Milngavie.

A GREY GLOW

READING Rosemary Goring’s article on going grey ("I will say it loud, I’m grey and I’m proud", The Herald, June 16) reminded me of the the occasion when my hairdresser said that my hair was coming in white. I thought that would be fun to see and so no longer dying my hair brown, I grew my hair out. I was delighted with the result.

What amuses me now is that the last time I went to have my hair cut a lady next to me pointed to my hair and asked to have her hair dyed the same colour.

Mrs Freddie Dale, Glasgow.