Slow down on the doom and gloom

HOW I agree with David Hambling (Letters, September 1) concerning the panic being engendered by the news items about the rising cost of energy.

I too was a child in the 40s and 50s before the days of central heating and double glazing. We also had just one coal burning stove and I was allowed a blunt knife in my bedroom to scrape the ice off the inside of the window.

We were fortunate to have a bathroom though. We wore lots of clothes. Food wasn’t plentiful as many things were either rationed or unobtainable.

Life won’t be easy this winter but it won’t be necessarily have to be a choice between heating and eating as people are predicting.

Now I am able to buy a variety of foods and many supermarkets sell own brand products quite reasonably.

I’m also fortunate to have central heating, though last winter I found that if I was sitting down for the evening, with the aid of a hot water bottle and cosy rug, I could turn it off.

Life will be hard for people, even more so for some than others, but we will survive. Let’s slow down on the doom and gloom and try to be a little more optimistic.

Jill Parsons