IN reply to Mr Clinton (Craven Herald Letters September 15) I am on planet reality orbited by the moon of cynicism.

In my 30 years working in London I was in some of the most deprived areas in the country, so I am fully aware that many people struggle to survive on way below what is acceptable, equally, when support is available some people will abuse it keeping it from those who really need it. However he seems to miss my point. What is poverty to some people nowadays was just normal life to many back in the old days but people got on with life and are here to tell the tale.

As they say about the hippy lifestyle culture of the Sixties - if you can remember it you weren't there - perhaps the same goes for us lesser mortals, if you can't remember when only rich people had central heating and you were waking up in winter with ice on the inside of your bedroom window, then you weren't there. But we wrapped up warm, kept calm, carried on and bred the next generation.

If today's experts believe youngsters will die because they can't cope with a bit of winter weather like we did, then perhaps my generation is partly to blame by getting on in life and trying to make life easier for our children and their children.

Perhaps we have made evolution take a turn for the worst, if so I can only apologise to future generations. All that scrimping and saving, no foreign holidays or social life to buy a house and try to make a better future for yourself and your family was all a waste of time. Ah, all the beer, tobacco and wild, wild women I missed out on.

Paul Morley

Long Preston