Dear Sir, Opposition Senator Kim Swan lost his position as golf pro at St. George's Golf Club after more than 12 years.

There was quite a lot of criticism going on in Wednesday's Royal Gazette . It seems that Senator Swan is devastated and so is his wife. My question is, why? Senator Swan has held this position for over twelve years and now because someone else is going to be given the chance his wife is screaming out it's political.

Why does it have to be political? Senator Swan did a good job and now it is time to give someone else a turn. Who is to say that the person hired for the job may not be the better man. Mrs. Swan needs to understand that just because the man who is taking her husband's position does not hold a university degree or has not earned the professional golf pedigree that her husband did does not mean that he is not fit for the job.

Not everyone has the opportunities to go to school and travel extensively as her husband did. There are plenty of people in the working world who do not obtain degrees but do their jobs ten times better than someone with one.

(Spoken from experience). It seems that too many people focus on the piece of paper. I know that it is important to get as much education as possible and get degrees so that it becomes easier to obtain a job but as I said earlier, not everyone can afford to.

As for the accusation of fishy politics taking place, I have to disagree. Is Mrs. Swan insinuating that because her husband is UBP he was removed from his post? If this is the assumption then she needs to prove that. If I am wrong, I will be the first to apologise but it seems like blaming stuff on politics has become the norm.

I congratulate Senator Swan for holding the position as golf pro for so long.

That accomplishment in itself should be enough to keep him happy. His wife says that he is devastated: I say get over it and cherish the memories you have of a job well done.

GREJAI SMITH Devonshire What a bad example May 9, 2001 Dear Sir, As I approached Queen Street from Reid Street yesterday evening May 8 at approximately 6.50 p.m., I slowed down in anticipation of the usual backlog of traffic that is all too often, in this vicinity. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the offending double-parked vehicle that had brought traffic to a complete standstill this time was in fact a Police vehicle (Mitsubishi station wagon licence number 09429).

A Corporation of Hamilton garbage truck was in the right lane busy loading trash leaving the only option of the left lane available to traffic. The WPc driver blocking the left lane was either completely oblivious to the number of cars behind her or she simply did not care while she awaited her male colleague to arrive with a chicken bucket in hand! Hardly the public perception of the Police our new Commissioner Jonathan Smith would approve of I think! Here's a suggestion for the government to increase the revenue in those ever-demanding coffers: Utilise the CCTV camera(s) already installed on Queen Street to "capture'' all those double-parked offenders and impose a $75 fine.

The cameras would have to be manually reviewed and offenders ticketed via the mail. Failure to pay the fine would result in a court appearance where the prosecutor could simply refer to the evidence on the tape (usually an accomplice of the driver seen either with KFC or a bag of videos in hand getting back into the offending vehicle!) Upon conviction, the court could impose an even heftier fine. However, if the Police were to review the cameras/tapes I am sure they will more than likely turn a blind eye to the "hand that feeds them'' when it comes to their own offending vehicles.

BACKED UP ENOUGH Paget