I MUST respond to the sneering comments directed at me by Marianne Taylor ("Let Baby Boomers pay for better mental health services", The Herald, May 14). She talks of "older people ... who have benefited so generously from the housing market".

I, like many of my generation, was the first of my family to reach university. Having graduated and undergone teacher training I began work in the early 1970s. My first month's pay was £69. I had to work four nights a week teaching night classes to make ends meet. There were no foreign holidays, little pocket money for children, no luxuries.

I claimed no benefits, never made an insurance claim and remained in debt my entire working life. I was absent a total of 10 days in 40 years. The first day I was debt-free was the day I received my pension lump sum, having worked a full 40 years.

I enjoyed my working life, I chose it and found it rewarding.

What I do not accept is that I should be subjected to this insult and by the continuing use of the opprobrious tag "Baby Boomer" which, like all such journalese, is meaningless.

Alice Watt,

70 Newton Street, Greenock.

I AGREE with the view of Allan Sutherland (Letters, May 12) regarding obesity being related to an ageing population and lack of money.

I have just returned from a holiday in a four-star hotel in Cyprus. The guests were probably 90 per cent British and most of the over-thirties were overweight and some of the fifties to sixties were extremely obese. This had no relation to poverty or ageing as many were talking about holidays in the United States or Dubai. They did not seem to care and I wonder how obese their children will be and what health issues they will have.

I have no answer about the answer to this problem and can only see it getting worse.

Malcolm Rankin,

107 Ardrossan Road, Seamill.