I HAVE just received a letter from Disability Living Allowance telling me I cannot have mobility. In the opinion of an adjudication officer, I am not ill enough.

They admit that I was knocked down, my left leg crushed and I can only walk for 100 yards with the aid of a stick before I have to rest.

I also suffer from chronic asthma and get out of breath very easily. I have glaucoma in my left eye, my left knee is very bad with arthritis and, at night, my foot turns black and my leg swells to twice its normal size.

I have no car and the specialist said that I have not to knock my leg, so this rules out public transport. I was hoping to get an automatic car that I could drive with my good right leg.

They describe the person who would qualify for mobility, but that person would already have transport - from a funeral parlour.

Finally, it amazes me, that some civil servant working 35 miles away, who is not qualified in medicine as a MD or even RGN can ignore specialists and doctors and give a judgment on me. They have never said that I should see a DSS doctor. I have seen no-one.

I am not after something for nothing. I was made redundant nine times in the cotton industry but always found work. I was the last overlooker at the last mill in Great Harwood.

My wife and I opened a pet shop and I thought this would see me to retirement, but an 84-year-old in a Ford Orion had other ideas.

D H ASPDEN, Moss Street, Great Harwood.

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