LETTERS

Different choices

WHY are the older generation being made to feel a burden by the likes of health minister Jackie Doyle-Price?

She is reported to have said that taxpayers should not be ‘propping up’ the elderly so they can hand their homes to their children, despite building up ‘massive’ care costs (Mail).

I am so sad that she doesn’t realise people have worked very hard to improve their lives. I can remember going to school with cardboard lining my shoes to keep the rain out, but I would never have accused the older generation for this hardship.

My husband and I have never earned high wages, but we worked hard to improve our lives and buy our own home. There was no foreign travel, and a meal out was a treat.

By choice we forfeited a lot in our lives to buy our home, and we would have to sell it to pay for going into care. I could then find myself in a room next to someone who had enjoyed holidays abroad while paying a low rent for social housing.

IRENE SouL, Wheatley, oxon.

Law in disorder

DISCRIMINATION against white heterosexual policemen (Mail) is not new. I have had to watch my once enthusiastic son become disheartened and disillusioned.

He has a degree, a masters and qualifications in counter-terrorism, and scores highly on every course and passed his promotions exams, though he had been barred from coaching classes that could be attended only by women or those from ethnic backgrounds.

But his applications for advancement get nowhere. While I appreciate the public service should represent a cross section of the community it serves, we need to select and promote the best candidate, regardless of colour or ethnicity rather than because of it.

Name and address supplied.

How to negotiate

AS A former litigation solicitor and mediator, I would say to those who express frustration at the progress of the Brexit negotiations that my experience was that the simplest dispute involving just a few thousand pounds often took months, and sometimes years, to resolve. The Brexit negotiations are on a level that few people can appreciate.

Having been up against Government lawyers on numerous occasions, I can say they are very thorough, and I believe they are finding the Europeans unable to match them on precision, hence their frustration. The Europeans thought we would just roll over. IAN WILSON, Shoreham-by-Sea, W. Sussex.

All to play for

THE latest football results: Hammond scores an own goal playing for extra time. Captain May ducks and dives, not sure which way to pass. As her weak Remainers Team are not on side for tough talking, it’s time she brought on the pro-Brexit reserves to be cheered on by a crowd of 17 million who want to see more on-field action.

EU Captain Merkel’s team has a solid wall in front of the French goalkeeper, their only thought to keep the GB opposition in limbo as long as possible, but they are willing to exchange some players for £100 billion up front.

Game prediction for January 2018: No change unless GB ups sticks and prepares for a home cup tie against the rest of the world in 2019.

GERALD AUSTIN, Bournemouth, Dorset.

Lost and found

I WAS surprised to read the piece referring to the publicity tour for my new book (Mail), quoting my mum’s views, but referring to a book, Losing My Virginity, that came out 19 years ago.

One can forgive my 93-year oldMum for mixing it up with my new book, Finding My Virginity, but I would have expected the diary to have got it right!

SIR RICHARD BRANSON, Necker, British Virgin Islands.

Seeing sense

NICK CLEGG and Richard Branson have suggested that because older Brexiteers would have died off, a second referendum in a few years would produce a Remain result.

I suggest that younger voters who voted Remain would have grown up a bit, seen sense and so would change their vote to Leave.

PETER BUTLER, Billinghurst, W. Sussex. AT THE age of 67, Richard Branson is not exactly in the first flush of youth, and I don’t know where he got the idea that it was the elderly who voted to Leave. I and a lot of my retired friends voted to Remain because we feared all the nastiness that is happening now.

LIZ DENTON, London SW11. WHY is Richard Branson so disparaging and disrespectful of the older generation?

When he is a member of the generation he decries, I wonder if he will then think that older people are incapable.

FAY GOODWIN, Lutterworth, Leics.

Put to the sword

MARKET stallholder Tina Gayle has committed the ‘ crime’ of selling coffee mugs depicting the sign of the ancient order of the Knights Templar (Mail).

She’s been banned from running a stall on Loughborough Market after some busybody reported her for fear that the mugs might offend someone.

That busybody had better turn their attention to Temple Bar in London. Do they propose it should be pulled down because it commemorates the Knights Templar church?

What about the village of Temple in Cornwall, named after a hospice

founded by these warrior monks? Should the Templar churches in Bristol and Dover and London’s The Knights Templar pub be razed to the ground?

SHEILA BELL, Codford, Wilts.

Never letting go

BEL MOONEY’S article about the sadness of losing a baby through miscarriage or stillbirth brought me to tears. My daughter had an unplanned pregnancy and discovered she was expecting twins. She went into labour at 25 weeks: Rebecca, 1lb ½oz, was stillborn, and James, 2lb 2 ½ oz, lived just one day because his lungs were underdeveloped.

It was a bad time for my daughter and the whole family. I always mark their birthday, May 14, 1984.

My daughter went on to have two healthy daughters, but my first two grandchildren will never be forgotten. MARY BRITTAN, Maidstone, Kent.

Having it all

DON’T shed any tears over UK Pensions chief Sir Robert Devereux — the mandarin responsible for us all having to work longer before we can claim our state pension — who is retiring at 61 with a £1.8 million pension pot.

I shall not be in the least surprised to learn if he has been offered a two- day- aweek job on the same salary that he receives now, with some prospective employer dreaming they can use his government contacts to boost their profits.

As a last resort, there is always the Government’s fivestar care home, or the House of Lords to give it its proper name. JAMES WIGNALL, Accrington, Lancs.

Help, not drugs

I WAS shocked at Dr Scurr’s response to the woman of 73 who says she cannot cope with retiring (Good Health). I am sure he is right in his diagnosis of depression, but the solution for someone who is still happily working at this age is not drugs, but to help them find a new purpose.

I have helped many people in their 60s who have a lot to offer and fear the blankness of retirement. ‘The terror of 365 days made me depressed,’ one said. I have helped them start new businesses, mentor others, give talks and write books.

I say 73 is the new 53. We need to find roles for people retiring, not pump them full of pills. VICTORIA TOMLINSON,

Harrogate, N. Yorks.