OUR story about a new Government strategy aimed at controlling numbers of wild deer in Britain worried one reader who phoned me to say: "Your article specified deer to be culled as red deer, roe deer, sika, muntjac, chinese water deer and the fallow deer.

"I hope the list will not include the little fellow in your picture (below) and those of his kind, the rare Cumbrian tripod deer.

"These unique three-legged creatures are a relic of the ice age when they developed so that when they sat down to slide down an ice-covered Lakeland fellside, they could tuck the single leg between their back legs to protect their tender parts in the event of collision with protruding rocks.

"They are very shy and secretive creatures and I haven't seen one in the wild for years. I was surprised that your photographer was able to get such a fine close-up shot."

KEEP IT FAIR "HAVE you noticed the plethora of signs springing up, giving directions with distances in metres," writes Will Walker.

"As we all know, giving distances in metres on road signs is illegal in Britain.

"Now a Dutch company has moved into the mills at Beetham and their sign on the A6 boldly states that the entrance to their facility is 160 metres.

"A plague on the cloggies! Don't they know it should be in yards."

That seems a good point to me, particularly in views of recent court cases where greengrocers were up before the beaks just because they sold fruit and veg in pounds when legislation now rules that goods must be sold in metric units.

If it is enforced one way it should also be enforced the other in cases where our British Imperial measurements still rule.

WHOSE JOB?

A COLLEAGUE overheard a conversation on the shores of Windermere, as a senior police officer was asked whether the force would be involved in enforcing the speed limit on the lake, and controlling possible protests against same.

The senior officer sighed deeply. "No," he said, "that is a task for lake wardens. We've got the fox-hunters."