When listening to the television or reading newspapers I hear people saying that they cannot afford to but clothes and food.

My mind goes back to when I as six years old and my dad was on the dole. We had no soles in our shoes and food was very sparse.

When I became a widowed mother in 1957 with three children, aged two, six and eight, life was very hard and the vegetables I grew in m y garden were a help.

When I married in 1947 my mother said to me: "Never a orrower or lender be."

I am a great great grandma and have kept to that always.

B Smith

Southampton