Letter: Rotten role models

THE PRIME MINISTER'S proposal for "secular vicars" and "community mentors" will not be seen as a "rap across the knuckles" for the churches (News, 27 September). They will be glad to welcome what can only be seen as co-operation in their continuing effort to stabilise family life, to minimise the devastating effect on so many children of broken homes, and if the proposed role models do their job properly that can only be for the good of a rising generation.

Role models? Theodore Dalrymple's assessment of Will Carling ("Where there's no Will", 27 September) is rightly a damning indictment of one who, like so many celebrities, could be a good role model but fails miserably. That some church folk also fail reflects badly on the whole church but should not detract from the effort made by so many who ought not - as your article implies - to be seen as "preachy".

REV E PHILIP SCHOFIELD

Penyffordd, Clwyd