Ale and hearty

9:36am Tuesday 11th March 2008

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I WOULD not dream of ridiculing Francine Clee's taste in motor vehicles when she says the vehicle that really gets her going is a "camper van" (The Press, February 27), but surely it has to be the Volkswagen camper, preferably 1960s or 1970s model and not just some box on wheels the likes of which Jeremy Clarkson and his mates were trashing in one of the Top Gear offerings.

There is nothing more pleasant than pottering around the Yorkshire Dales visiting some of the finest hostelries this country has to offer, serving real beer, good food and in the winter months a good old fashioned coal fire to get warm by.

All the establishments I have visited in the Dales have no problem with customers kipping in their vans if they so wish and sometimes you have no choice as a couple of great must-visit pubs, the Sun in Dent and the Tan Hill Inn, the highest pub in England, have limited rooms.

When Francine says "flash" cars leave her cold, I presume she means the boy-racer bangers with chrome wheels, straight through exhausts and back seat removed to fit huge audio speakers. Surely she cannot mean the likes of Aston Martin, Jaguar XK8, AC Cobra, Morgan, the C3 model Corvette Stingray and some Ferraris, all of which have the same beautiful lines of Miss England, Georgia Horsley?

Meanwhile, I shall potter about in my four-litre dream machine, of which I am sure Francine would disapprove.

Bob Waite, Holgate, York.