Pensioners like me can’t afford a Sunday roast

IT’S shocking that roasting a £3.75 chicken costs £5 — and that price will increase shortly.

A lot of pensioners will have to say goodbye, as I have, to a traditional home-cooked Sunday roast, subsisting on cheap cans of baked beans instead.

My diet is mainly the cheapest cereal, pasta and bread, the object being to fill up rather than nourish.

Cat food is prioritised before fruit, vegetables and luxury items such as eggs. It’s not the cats’ fault — they, too, have had to be weaned off the good stuff.

Juggling rent, council tax and all the other bills — in other words, robbing Peter to pay Paul — is how a lot of us are living.

There is one good thing: if starvation or scurvy wipe us out, at least we can’t be blamed for bed blocking.

Miss JEANNIE SLOMAN, Bedford.

Not such tough times

I’D LOVE to return to my childhood when times were harder (Letters). We lived in a council prefab with an open fire and metal windows that didn’t close fully. I don’t recall anyone complaining.

Everyone on our estate was in the same position, so we just accepted it and got on with life.

The plus side of having only one warm room in a family home is that everyone congregated to talk to each other and eat together.

Too many families today live segregated lives in front of computers in their own rooms.

My childhood was quiet and slow paced. Life today is harsh and dehumanised thanks to aggressive social media.

DOREEN CLARKE, Spalding, Lincs.