IT was with sadness and regret that I read your article about the Whitehall suggestion to merge the Queens Lancashire Regiment into a new Lancashire and Borders regiment (LET, July 17).

The chief of the general staff, Sir Mike Jackson and Geoff Hoon, do not know what they are talking about if they think that the name of a regiment doesn't make any difference. No wonder the officers in the German army of the First World War made the statement saying that our lads were Lions led by Donkeys, for it seems that we have always had the Lions but it seems that we still have the Donkeys as well!

I served in the East Lancashire Regiment in the days of National Service back in the 1950s and I am proud to this day to have served in such a distinguished and proud regiment as The East Lancashire Regiment.

Soldiers come and soldiers go but the soul of a regiment lives on in it's name and the history of that regiment due to the deeds done by ordinary officers and men of that regiment in times of trouble or war.

I applaud the East Lancashire MPs who are fighting the plans to merge the Queens Lancashire Regiment into a new Lancashire and Borders Super Regiment and I think that all who live in Lancashire who have served or who have relatives who have served in any of the proud Regiments that amalgamated to form today's Queens Lancashire Regiment should in some way make their thoughts known to those Donkeys at Whitehall. We will not stand for it.

G PARKINSON (Mr), Rhodes Avenue, Blackburn.