Are the baby boomers really generation smug?

I AM of the same generation as Peter Cade (Letters) — the one he feels had it all and are about to get more, the generation that no longer cares about its children and grandchildren. However, our experience of life does not fit the same scenario — I worked my way through a nursing qualification in my late teens and when I finally went to university in my 40s, I paid my way. And I paid for my daughter to attend college. All my working life I paid into a government scheme to pay for the NHS and my pension — none of us gets any of these for free. Every pensioner in this country has paid National Insurance all their working life. If any insurance company other than the government kept changing the terms of their policies, they would be out of business. E. HUNTER, W. Mids. I AM of the generation of ‘plunderers’, but I never claimed much in the way of benefits. As a parent and granny, I can assure Peter Cade that there are many like me who are worried about the planet. My family were taught to be independent and not to sponge off other people. However, nearly everyone I know has too much of everything: will this generation be called the Crazy Consumers? ANN ALLAN, address supplied. PETER CADE says that he and his generation had loads of ‘free’ things, but they were only free at the point of use: they all had to be paid for out of taxation. The older generation have been paying into the pension and benefits pot since we started work at just 14 or 15 years of age. I agree with Peter on one point: youngsters should get engaged in their future. They should also remember that what they expect to get for free at the point of use will have to be paid for them by future generations when they are older. M. P. ROUND, Telford, Shropshire.