I FULLY applaud your newspaper's campaign to improve the image of our town.

My wife and I are now pensioners, having lived here since 1972. But we remember the days when we used to come here on day trips as teenagers and, later on, with our children.

We came for the same reasons as today's visitors -- to have a good time. Loutish behaviour, filthy streets, muggings etc., were not part of the scene then. But let's not lay today's problems solely at the door of visitors.

Many of the problems are created by our own young people and perhaps this is where we should start to improve our image.

Let me give an example: Some time ago I telephoned Highfield School to complain about the behaviour of some of their pupils. The headmaster was not available but I spoke to a senior teacher on duty. This teacher assured me that my complaint would be passed on and the headmaster would get back to me.

I received no response to my complaint and the situation seems the same. My complaint was about the lack of responsibility portrayed by the pupils, their disregard for the environment and their attitude to elderly people.

There is a fish and chip shop across the road from Highfield School and on the occasion of one of my visits to the shop I assisted an elderly lady to her feet after she had slipped on a half-eaten pie that had been thrown onto the pavement by some pupil. The amount of litter that had been just "thrown to the wind" by about 20 pupils was disgusting. Half-eaten food was lying around the pavements, discarded polystyrene containers were blowing down Highfield Road -- one pupil was actually sitting on the litter bin which is outside the shop, but he still threw his container onto the pavement. When I complained about this I received a number of suggestions from the pupils, ie., "**** off", "bring your own brush and shovel" and the now common vertical finger gesture.

These pupils are not visitors, they are our future generation and if they behave like this in their own community then their behaviour will be similar when they are in town and indistinguishable from visitors.

Name & address supplied.

Head of Highfield High School Derek Digman said he was now dealing with the complaint and, while the school took every measure to educate pupils about litter-throwing and out-of-school behaviour, it remained on-going problem and he in no way excused the children's behaviour.

"We take complaints seriously. We have a photograph of every pupil in the school and the public is invited to come in and identify offenders. We also have litter patrols who cover the shops area on Highfield Road," he said.