WITH reference to Ian Tindall's remarks on farming (Letters, November 25), although myself or my family has never been involved in farming, I do have some sympathy for farmers.

There is no doubt that farming needed rationalising, just like coal, cotton, steel and shipbuilding. The difference is that employees of these industries received redundancy pay, some quite substantial amounts.

The farmers, on the other hand, receive nothing. Many tenant farmers even lose their homes, as the landowner sells off buildings for conversion to houses that are snapped up by us townies.

A fair trade would you say, for years and, in some cases, generations of hard work?

As for the Mercedes and Volvos outside Gisburn market, many belong to affluent townies who come to buy 'pet' lambs and ducks, etc, for their families, who soon won't be able to see any sheep or cattle in the fields as all the farmers will have given up and be long gone.

RUTH MARRINER, Old Victoria Stores, Tockholes, Darwen.

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