IT was heartening to read of the work of Making Space (October 28) in supporting people's emergence from such a fearful illness.

Even with support from Making Space, how much harder it must be for sufferers who do not have a family to welcome them back, or who are shunned by them. Then they return to a barren desert.

And there are so many other "tortured minds," for whom there is no medication - the abused child who feels filthy and worthless but cannot tell, the alcoholic who despises himself for his deceit and degradation but can only find despising from the world.

The teenager, a child too old for home but too young for benefit, who sleeps in the doorway of Debenhams. He asked me for change and afterwards I wished I'd offered to share a pizza with him. And the person with Alzheimers, who has a moment of terrifying insight before they slip away from themselves, and us, forever.

For these people its harder to see a "happy ending." Let's remember them too.

M HENRY, Revidge Road, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.