Gordon was okay as our chancellor

You think what you like and I will think what I know but I will answer the questions you asked at the end of your letter.

Gordon Brown in the decade he was chancellor provided stability for the economy and reassurance for individuals and businesses, a decade that even Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, called NICE (non-inflationary consistently expansionary). The most successful chancellor with growth in every quarter for 10 years.

Gordon sold gold not because the country was broke he sold it to buy Euros, a good move, Euros have since appreciated against sterling by 25 per cent also currency can be invested, gold can’t.

Gold! Keynes called it an absurdity.

Ask Italy, whose official gold holdings are 79 million ounces, and at £1,000 an ounce that’s a lot of lolly.

It would help to pay off some of their debt but it has to be sold first and who is going to buy gold at that price? My bet is the gold price will be the next bubble to burst!

I have bad news for you on the PFI, the cost of which you say will be paid by your children’s children. The coalition is going ahead with 61 PFI products worth £6.9bn and today (July 20) have announced another £2bn to rebuild 300 schools. Of course, PFI was a Tory idea in the first place.

And finally pensions – I have answered this question a few times. What Gordon Brown did was to stop paying a tax credit to company pension funds because the money was going to the shareholders. Blame Mrs Thatcher who told employers to take a pensions payment holiday, she said too much money was going into pensions.

M J Warner Groundwell Road Swindon

Mag was above par

I write to congratulate you for the excellent supplement on golf courses across the county.

As a dad whose 15-year-old son is developing an interest in this sport, I was particularly taken by the pen pictures of the various nine-hole courses which allow developing golfers to learn the basics without the high costs often associated with some established 18-hole courses.

Whilst I am not a golfer, I already appreciate the environment and ambience illustrated in the pictures of our Wiltshire courses.

My boy is learning to play at the Twelve Oaks course, featured in your supplement, where the hares and hawks entertain we parents, and the lake is home to many fish, birds and, I am told, shoals of golf balls!

My son, no doubt inspired by young golfers Rory McIlroy and Tom Lewis, is discovering the satisfaction and frustrations that made golf a good game for leaning about the importance of self-control and personal discipline, so often lacking in teenagers today.

Wiltshire is rich in its golfing assets. For me Twelve Oaks Golf Club is part of that asset base, and I hope many parents encourage their youngsters to take up this sport which is no longer the sole domain of the privileged few.

T Weaver Stratton Swindon

Too young for proms

In response to Simon Stratford’s letter (Adver, July 22) I offer the Mandy Rice Davies defence: “He would say that wouldn ’t he?”

Let me say at the outset I have the utmost admiration for the hard work that all who are associated with the pre-school movement do, having had a grandson and now a granddaughter pass through them.

However, in this case, no matter how many people agree with it, if the basic premise is flawed then the final outcome is neither right nor proper.

By all means have a party, let the children dress up but encourage three to five-year-olds to dress up prom style is to encourage the sexualisation of these little ones.

This idea of prom parties is a drain on parents – some parents of secondary school children are spending on average £450 on these functions. It should not be encouraged at such an early age. Also it is not a graduation. They received no qualifications and as I said before they are merely moving from pre-school to a bigger school. Again this should be marked but do not call it a graduation, let alone dress them up in mortar boards as a further picture in the Adver showed.

I am glad that as Mr Stratford says it was fun-filled but please, please get rid of this awful American import and leave graduation to those who have degrees and higher.

Geoffrey Heaford The Green Highworth

Two sides to story

In July 27th’s issue you devoted three-quarters of a page to free publicity on behalf of the council about the transfer of council housing and a further long column by Rod Bluh on the same subject.

There is also a good case to be made for not transferring. Are you prepared to give equal space to an article giving the reasons why council tenants should not vote to transfer? Is this publicity considered by the council to be part of their consultation process, which is supposed to take place prior to a ballot?

Sherry Waldon (a Council tenant) Kingswood Avenue Park North

Have a clear-out

I am writing to encourage you and your readers in Wiltshire to give your unloved electricals a second chance by donating them to British Heart Foundation Furniture & Electrical stores.

I’m hoping that your readers will join me and have a rummage in their homes for any unwanted hi-fis, DVD players, mp3 players and coffee makers – as long as they’re still working, the BHF will find them a new home in Wiltshire.

The BHF has joined up with Currys and PC World stores to create over 1,200 drop off points.

You’ll receive a five per cent voucher to spend in Currys and PC World as well as the chance to win £1000s worth of prizes.

For those larger electrical items lying around, you can even book a free collection.

All proceeds will go towards fighting heart disease – last year BHF shops raised £26m.

To find your nearest drop-off point in Wiltshire visit bhf.org.uk/dropitin or call 0844 412 5000.

Pollyanna Woodward British Heart Foundation London Cooking help plea The trouble with old age is, as they say, that there ain’t much future in it.

What’s more, the older I gets, the more I have my doubts about getting wiser.

When my late wife was ill, I learned how to cook-up a halfway decent serving of a meat and two veg. NAAFI commando stuff, make an omelette and bake a spud. I managed. Heston Blumenthal I certainly was not.

When I lost her, I didn’t cook for a long time. What’s the point in cooking when you’ve lost interest in eating?

Eventually I got fed up with spaghetti on toast and cod in parsley sauce and found myself cooking just to pass away the hours of the day.

I can make a hearty stew with mince steak, pachetta, liver and pasta. I gave the recipe to a good friend of mine and she had to have an enema.

But I can’t work out what I’m doing wrong with my shepherd’s pie. I bent the fork getting through the potato and cheese topping. The mince was dry but edible, providing you washed it down with a bottle of supermarket on offer Chateau de Vin Mountain.

I didn’t do too bad for a fully paid-up member of the walking-stick brigade charging up the stairs three at a time to the bathroom like an ostrich bitten on the backside by a scorpion.

In truth, I’m not cut out to be a Masterchef. I’ll stick to my roast chicken legs or lamb chop. As for the Rick Stein stuff, baked trout, sprats when I can get ’em (those that are not being churned into fertilizer) and sardines, graciously left us by the Spanish fishing boats you and I are paying for.

Any readers out there with simple recipes for a dysfunctional cook?

John P Hunter Kerry Close Shaw, Swindon

Lobby your MPs

I would like to ask all pensioners and other low paid workers to write, email or speak to their MPs to petition David Cameron about the stealth tax being imposed by the Government on our energy suppliers’ bills to pay for the very controversial green taxes imposed on us by the EU which is estimated to add about 25 per cent to the bill.

This is simply ridiculous, given that we are £2 trillion in debt and are already having to face several more years of austerity trying to manage the debt without being faced with hypothetical green issues which should be put on the back burner until we are better placed to throw good money after half baked clap trap, simply to satisfy the bureaucrats at Brussels.

Ian Hunt Hill View Road Swindon