THE socialist waffling of MEP Mark Hendrick on the 48-hour week (Letters, November 23) should be treated with the same disdain as all the EU's rambling directives that have no sensible objective.

What about the "stressful" jobs? Are we to understand that a brain surgeon operating in an emergency must stop because his time is up?

Or that the firefighter must clock off in the middle of a blazing inferno?

Many jobs, by their very nature, expect workers to do long hours, especially those in maintenance, shop-fitting and the like. And the people so employed have no grumbles.

A fine example is Britain's recent success in winning the refit of the QE2 for the first time in years. It will require manpower working round the clock to get the ship turned around in time - and the workers will be happy about that.

As for working days lost through stress, how much of it is not work-related but down to personal matters like financial problems, troubled relationships, etc?

These politicians show no consideration for the people really working under pressure and round the clock every day of the year - the proud British housewives and mothers.

WALT MEADOWS, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.

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