""Just wondering when was the last (if any) time Don and Bluesman actually visited a 'sink' estate and talked to the people there to find out how hard their lives are, what their aspirations are and how litle hope they have of ever achieving them.""

You know nothing whatever about my life, and less about what I would, or would not do to help people worse off than myself, so to save you having to think, I will tell you.

I grew up in one of the worst sink estate areas in North London, which was also about fifty percent bomb craters. My father did three jobs to support his family, eight hours a day as a shopfitting joiner, and five hours every evening working at a local furniture repairer's, then two eight hour shifts each weekend working on bomb damaged Council properties.

With him as a role model I worked hard enough at school (in spite of spending three days a week at the Western Ophthalmic Hospital in Paddington) to win a scholarship to a decent Grammar.

I started my working life as an analytical chemist, only later realising that a chemist's pay was about one third of what the labourers in the brewery got.

After about ten years I'd had enough, so packed it in and took on an apprenticeship in my father's trade. From then till I retired I have done about every dirty, disgusting, job you can think of and more.

So, your opinion of me is wrong, and worthless (about par for the course).

It might interest you to know that one of the first men to leave court, having been convicted of riot and theft works as a teaching assistant.

So much for disadvantaged youth.

Today's kids are the third generation offspring of the sixties Dr Spock kids. They were allowed to choose what to do at school and were totally undisciplined, and that lack of discipline and respect has been passed down the line, growing more pronounced, and more unmanageable with each generation.

When I was a kid every bloody thing was rationed, and you think I don't know about deprivation.

When things got tough we shared what we had. We didn't go out and steal somebody else's share. We had respect for our parents, respect for our teachers and respect for the local Bobby (who would always help if we needed it).

Most of all, we had too much self respect (and pride), to steal or beg, from the government or anybody else.

What none of you lefties ever want to hear is that Maggie Thatcher did not intend that everybody should grab whatever he/she could.

You all shy away from the fact that she was suggesting that those who could afford to pay their own way would do so, leaving the government more to spend on those who really needed it.

That's what left wingers can't stand, because the concept of the rich paying their way destroys what they want to believe about the Tories.

Apart from my eye problems as a child, the first money I ever took from the government was my state pension. I was actually registered on the list of one doctor for twenty two years without even meeting him.

Now tell me again, what is your objection to the rich paying their way? Because it's always the left wingers that go berserk when the idea is mentioned.

Don T.