HOW my heart bleeds for Terry Hickman who is so incensed by having to wear a face mask when doing his shopping that he has now decided that he will have to have a supermarket delivery to show his objection to the new law.

“What will he do when his home stocks dwindle?” he asks from his self imposed martyrdom.

Well I suggest that he makes his protest even more powerful by also not leaving the house for anything other than medical treatment, not visiting his 87-year-old mother, only seeing his children and grandchildren from a distance in the garden and having his one-year-old great grandson think that it is normal to greet him by waving from a several metres away.

He can also cancel his long planned holiday with his entire family while hoping that they will enjoy the trip in its newly Covid reduced form.

By making these sacrifices he will be living exactly as my wife, myself and millions of other vulnerable people have had to live for the last four months.

As a long term blood cancer patient with a subsequently weakened immune system, when I visit the hospital (three times this week), every single member of staff and patient wears one of Mr Hickman’s hated masks in an attempt to keep each other safe and all without a single complaint.

This is because after receiving the highest possible levels of care and treatment from the most incredible medical team for almost six years, both they and myself consider that exposing myself and others to unnecessary risk would be nothing short of ridiculous.

So Mr Hickman I am sure that most people like myself would love to be able to get some normality, such as visiting our local supermarkets back into their lives, and by everyone complying with the new law that may just happen sooner.

Just maybe this letter will make both Terry Hickman and Desmond Swayne MP realise that the world does not just revolve around their personal situations and that they may stop their incredible levels of selfishness and start to consider the wellbeing of every other person that they may come into contact with, or then again am I being naive?

T.K.Tew

Netley Common