IT never fails to amaze me when I visit the chemist for my permanent medication and at times when I visit my Health Centre to see people picking up freebies - medication and baby welfare foods such as tinned milk and vitamins.

Then, these same people drive off in a car. (It is not cheap to run a car). Benefits should not be used for running a car, or for scratch cards, bingo, etc. It makes me so mad when I have worked for years (I am not a pensioner) and I have to pay the full whack. Everyone in this country except children and pensioners who have paid full contributions, should be made to pay something towards prescription charges etc. It is more important to feed your child than run a car. There should be no distribution without contribution.

In the bad old days (or were they?) my father-in-law, in the 1930s depression, had to sell his watch and wedding ring (he was told to do this) and he had to walk from Darwen to Queen's Park Hospital in Blackburn every day to lay pipes before the Assistance Board, now the DSS, would grant him any money.

Also, my grandmother was interrogated by three people before she was granted 2s 6d (12p).

It is time the majority stopped living off the backs of the minority. Bring back the good old days, I say.

H HAMER (Mrs), Lowther Place, Blackburn.

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