Let me begin with a declaration of my own: I thank God Dewsbury is my home town. I was born and raised in Dewsbury and lived there from 1964-1990 (I now live in North London) and am proud of and grateful for my heritage.

I grew up in a safe and loving environment, and have a memory bank full of happy childhood memories, much of which is centred on times spent in Crow Nest Park. So it was with great sadness I read Andrew Norfolk's recent article in The Times – prompted by the murder in the park and the events surrounding Sharon Matthews.

Notwithstanding that journalists can be agenda-based and superficial in their investigations, Norfolk's article makes depressing reading. Similarly, Wendy Jones in her Radio 4 programme, Defiance in Dewsbury, in which she visits Dewsbury 20 years after the schools row in 1987, comments: "The two communities still live largely separate lives, in some ways more separate than ever."

In The Times article, Norfolk quotes Margaret Watson as having said "we don't have the opportunity to come together", and people I know who live there say that "the town is dying".

It would seem then, my home town has become divided. On recent visits it seemed clear to me the commercial vibrancy of the centre (the historic market in particular seems to have lost its magic) has gone, and the fence around the war memorial in Crow Nest Park is indicative of social disorder. I have no doubt also the normality of drug use and gang culture (none of which afflicted my own childhood) all add up to a discouraging picture of a once thriving community.

The 1987 schools row (throughout which I lived in Dewsbury) brought to the surface deeply held prejudices, and the chance to examine our hearts on this matter slipped by as we took the 'way out' offered by the umbrella of 'parental choice' – understandable perhaps, given the intense media coverage made it difficult to express our true feelings. The schools row seemed to me to be the foundation for a dividing wall that both communities have been happy to build.

I believe the answer to Dewsbury's future lies in its past. I appeal to Christians in Dewsbury to come together in prayer and that prayer must begin by asking forgiveness for any mistreatment, either in word, thought or action of Dewsbury's Asian community – our own hearts must be cleansed first.

My own prayer will be that the next time the media shines its spotlight on Dewsbury it will find a town transformed by the love of God; a healthy, prosperous, drug free, crime free town, a town full of vibrancy and passion, where all its people care for and truly love one another, living in a peace which passes all understanding, a town that not only dares to speak its name, but has a name synonymous with prosperity and unity.


DAVID ROUTLEDGE
Enfield
LONDON