FURTHER to reports that Ian Smith, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia, has died at the age of 88 years, he is typical of the white man's understanding that blacks are not fit to govern themselves.

How arrogant can one get?

The same applied to South Africa where I served in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy from 1943 to 1946. This was where I had first had knowledge of the attitude of whites to blacks.

I clearly recall the advice given to us on the ship HMT Andes the night before we docked in Capetown was to the effect "never give way to a black, on the sidewalk make them step off into the road."

Needless to say I ignored this advice and became good friends with a Cape coloured family.

ROY MARTIN, Kemp Court, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.