REGARDING Tony Manson's letter "Means testing OAPs": I am now in my seventies and left school at 15 years old, the only time I did not work was when I stayed at home when I had my sons.

I paid into the system all my working life and had a state pension at 60 years, plus a very small works pension.

The person he met in London with the "handouts" probably worked hard as well as most people in their seventies did then.

He might even have had his Sunday best on or even saved up to enable him to go to a function.

Like me, the OAP of today paid into the system all their lives and paid into a pension fund – we don’t want charity, just what we paid for over the years of hardship.

Remember the years after the war when nobody had anything and wore hand-me-downs and clothes from jumble sales.

Perhaps Mr Manson is better off than most and doesn’t need help. Good luck to him, I hope he doesn’t need medical care because believe me it is hard to get it at this age. The NHS doesn’t want to spend money on you.

So you need these little extras to help pay for treatment because that’s where my winter fuel allowance and TV money is going.

J CLEGG

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