Sir, I was pleased to read the two separate letters from the Messrs. Williams on the subject of what looks as if it could become the Whitlow Saga, until the Editor finally comes up with the traditional, 'This correspondence is now closed'. Before that happens, however, much as I agree with and appreciate the sentiments of the two Saundersfooters on the question of maligning the Dockers, and even the poor old Scousers, which could include the Beatles, yeah, yeah, yeah, let us also not forget how many Saundersfooters in days of old went down to 'The Dock' to look for work, including the pioneering Saundersfoot aviator, Bill Frost, after he had lost everything on his 19th Century venture. Apart from people coming into the rural areas and talking about country and wildlife matters of which they know nothing, such as predator control and fox-hunting et al, it is not so much the building of new houses which is now destroying our rural areas, but the ever increasing blight of holiday homes. Bearing in mind all of which, I would like to offer both the worthy writers a gentle word of caution about incomers. I certainly have no aversion to them. I have been blessed with two wonderful wives. My late wife was a Brummie, and my second wife is a Wiltshire Moonraker. When the historian, Richard Fenton, wrote his 'History of Pembrokeshire' in 1810, he did not even visit the 'small village', for the simple reason that it did not exist. In 1813 there were no more than six houses there. It was only with the building of the harbour, and the coming of the coal trade in the 1830s, that people began to move to Saundersfoot to look for work. Name for me anybody of the older generation there today, who was born in the village, and you can be as certain as can be that they will trace their ancestry to one or other of the surrounding villages or parishes of the area, which was why my book, 'Old Saundersfoot', was subtitled 'From Monkstone to Marros'. My maternal grandfather, who farmed Whitlow as it once was, came from Boncath, and my grandmother from Dale. My father moved all the way from far distant Wisemansbridge, or Wiseman's Bridge, if you prefer, in the parish of Amroth, to look for work, but I have not yet found mention of any of his ancestors as having come from anywhere else, although I have not gone as far back as Noah's Ark. I have had a number of helpful comments on my letter, not all of them printable. One character suggested that I had it all wrong about the site for the new Tesco, and saying that Coppet Hall meadow would be a much better idea, but I could not agree. Discuss.
Roscoe Howells, Amroth.