I WOULD like to reply to Mr L A O’Bee’s letter (July 19).

Yes, Mr O’Bee, I do agree with your policies most of the time, but you miss the point this time on what I was saying, namely over population.

I did not resent the fact that you had your own house, I said you were one of the fortunate ones. It’s not all families that can build their own homes, so we would not need council housing and blocks of oneand two-bedrooms flats.

When I left the Army in 1947, and got married, I applied to the council for a council house. Having no children at the time, I was told I would be on the bottom of the list.

At that time I was told the waiting list was 3,000.

A few days ago, in the Echo, there were over 15,000 on the housing list – what improvement is there?

I was lucky, Mr O’Bee. In 1953 I got a council house on the Harefield Estate. In a few years we had the chance to buy it.

As for our green and pleasant land, it would now all be built on if we were lucky like you to build your own house. But unfortunately so many live in large blocks of flats, with one or two bedrooms.

No, our one problem in this life is over-population. There are double the people in the world today from a mere 100 years ago and it is getting worse. It has been stated there are double the number of slum towns in the world as there were at the end of the last war.

If you had watched the football in Brazil, you could see how life is going downhill. Population is the only problem we have. I’m sorry you don’t accept it. I don’t know if you have any children, Mr O’Bee, but I have ten great-grandchildren.

What life will be like when they are my age, I dread to think.

A W HANLON, Southampton.