The report about the rise in prices of the reopened ferry crossing on Windermere from Bowness to Sawrey might be of concern to the local residents as well as the tourist who use it (Gazette, April 11, 'Increase in ferry fares takes effect').

You may have letters about it, but they will probably not be as long as the one in which a local JP wrote a letter from Rothbury denouncing the rise in 1863, in which the fare rose from “the age old price of 4 pence to the outrageous price of 6p.”

How times and money have changed! The old fares would have gone to the ferryman but where do today’s profits go?

S. Premru

Arnside