Holiday highlighted our growing obesity crisis

IT was announced recently that average life expectancy in the UK had stopped rising and, in the case of Wales, had fallen slightly.

This was put down to austerity, but I believe this is just a red herring.

We have just spent a week in your average four-star tourist hotel in Ibiza and were shocked by the large number of very overweight people staying there, many young, mostly women, a handful of whom I can only call enormous.

One day, I was waiting for the lift (capacity six) with two others. When the lift arrived there were already two very large ladies inside. We got in but the lift would not move till one person got out. How embarrassing but one lady just said “there were too many in the lift”.

Surely, it is this obesity epidemic, with its associated risks of diabetes, strokes, heart attacks and cancer, that is dragging down average life expectancy.

This is putting a massive and unnecessary strain on our NHS, which, unless people change their ways, can only get worse. David Gorton Rumney, Cardiff David Gorton Rumney

Proud of what my son has achieved

THE article about Kat Williams’ diagnosis of autism at the age of 32 rang a bell with me, especially some of the mistakes she made which were similar to mine.

Although I knew that my dad and my son were within the autism spectrum it was not until I was in my 70s that it was confirmed that I also belonged to the club.

When I was a social worker I had already realised that I was “different” and during my mental health studies had read about the subject. I am most thankful for the progress my autistic son has made in life. When he was young I was told by medical experts that he was a write-off. My husband and I split up before our son, Howard, was born. He left the city and I had no idea of his whereabouts. After four years I obtained a divorce (desertion and neglect to maintain). When Howard was a child he was diagnosed as profoundly autistic. Also, he is asthmatic and has insulin diabetes. As a child he was hyperactive and had no sense of danger. I had to nail bars over the bedroom window because he’d climb on the sill and push against the glass. Once he butted me and chipped my two front teeth when I picked him up quickly to save him from danger. He was refused education as he could not speak until he was nine.

I always worked, there was no choice. Social security money would have been insufficient to keep Howard. He always had a good appetite and his extra large-sized clothes were expensive.

In 1973 my son received a letter saying my ex-husband had died. Just enough money was left to pay the burial expenses. In those days there was no allowance for a disabled child and the stigma of being a divorcee with a handicapped child was very strong. I had been frugal and managed to save enough to buy an 1880s house with a dodgy roof, no bathroom and an outside toilet. It took me ages to clean up and get rid of the mice and cockroaches but it was worth it.

I am proud of Howard. Many will always consider him as being a “bit odd” but he is popular and has a tremendous sense of humour. He is great company and is kind and affectionate.

Years ago we both signed on for part-time computer courses to try to gain an education which we both lost in our youth. A disability officer at the Jobcentre had referred Howard to the classes and I joined too. We both became hooked and ended up signing on for a full-time course at a local college. We completed the second year of full-time studies and gained several diplomas in computer studies. We were thrilled to gain our qualifications and went on to complete our studies in local universities. In 2003 Howard graduated from university in computer science.

We are both happy and have made lots of friends through our IT interests. Our lives were transformed. We won despite stigma. Just like Kat! Barbara MacArthur Cathays, Cardiff

It was Miliband who let Momentum in

JAYNE ISAAC is right (“Labour mobilising the disengaged”, Echo letters, October 1) but I put it down to Ed Miliband’s £3 ticket to ride that let the militant tendency/Momentum to crawl back into the Labour Party.

And now we have Santa Corbyn with his 2017 sack of IOUs on his sledge drawn by Venezuela. Do you think that the right-leaning EU will let a hard-left country back in to full membership? A Edwards Caerau, Cardiff

Uni must do better, it’s patently obvious

IT is widely accepted that patent protection and job creation in the technical arts go hand in hand with job creation.

But how does Wales’ number one research university match up with a smaller university in England?

For example, Cardiff University and Imperial College in England have 8,510 (2016/17) and 7,982 (2016/17) postgraduates respectively.

Postgrads typically provide the grunt work in research projects. One might therefore expect that Cardiff University, with 500 or so more postgraduates, has a greater number of issued patents on the US patent database than Imperial College. However, Imperial has nearly three times more issued US patents than Cardiff.

Of note, Imperial College is so focused on protecting its innovation that for the purposes of filing patents it now refers to itself as Imperial Innovations Limited.

Isn’t it time that Cardiff University applied a similar focus on patent protection?

All this begs the question: is the Welsh Assembly taking note of such a wide disparity in patent performance and doing something to fix it? Christopher Wood (originally from Cardiff) Arlington, Virginia

There’s a whole world out there...

BRYAN D Prescott’s letter (“EU links are crucial”, October 4) was very interesting, if only for the content being more factual than imaginary.

He acknowledges a previous letter from Ray Jones stating that the UK is the fifth largest economy in the