Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Hospital too small

John Humphrey spent 18 hours on a trolley at the Great Western Hospital according to your article on 11 January.

The 95-year-old former Navy veteran worked on Second World War convoys to Russia and Malta.

He went to the A&E department at GWH with suspected blood poisoning but waited a total of 25 hours before he could be found a bed.

He was just one example of the many people waiting on trolleys that day. The problem is that the GWH is too small.

The infrastructure in Swindon is not in place to deal with a the rapidly expanding population.

Building houses is easy. The hard part is all the capital expenditure required to handle the rapidly rising numbers of people.

Further house building in Swindon should be put on hold, at least until GWH is expanded to deal with the expected level of demand.

The situation at the present time is that GWH simply cannot cope.

TERRY HAYWARD, Burnham Road, Swindon

Trolley is a bed

Your headline on Jan 11th ‘No bed for war veteran’ was not something I felt fair to Great Western Hospital.

I too was once taken ill and rested on a comfortable, portable ‘bed’. It was sensible because the patient could easily be wheeled to a ward or wherever without being disturbed. In hindsight, it would have been better if we had kept the old Princess Margaret and RAF hospitals, but we didn’t. There is space to keep expanding GWH in the future.

MARY ROGERS, Beverstone Grove, Swindon

Not wanted here

Once again The US president is showing his true colours by denigrating and demeaning certain less well off countries. How much longer are the decent American population going to accept his blatant racism as the norm?

Last week he cancelled a proposed visit to London to open the new US embassy, saying that he didn’t like the building and that former President Obama wasted lots of money on it.

This was not actually true, it was President Bush who ordered the construction of a new embassy, Obama actually offset the cost of the new building by selling off the old Grosvenor Square building, which had become a prime target for potential terrorists.

The real reason he cancelled his visit was because his advisors informed him his visit would generate massive protests in London against him, and that would not look good for him or his ego. I hope the Royal family have the sense to not invite him to the royal wedding come May 19 as I’m sure it would lead to more protests and spoil Harry and Meghan’s day.

You and your bigoted views are not wanted here Mr President.

TOM HORWAT, Upavon Court, Penhill, Swindon