SIR, - 1 am very glad that Mr. O'Hanlon (Hon. Secretary of
the Old Age Non-Pensioners' Associa- tion), has shown up the injustices of the present system of pensions in his letter to the Spectator.
I have two older sisters, whose husbands lost their lives in the First World, War. Both were brilliant, men, one a surgeon, the other a Classics scholar, and their widows have had a yell, rough deal. They.were over sixty in 1948 when the pension scheme came in, so do not qualify, and all they get is a meagre war pension, which in 1919 was small enough, but now a mere' pittance. Mr. O'Hanlon quotes Mr. Macmillan as saying in 1957: 'The Conseniative Party has a clear duty to those who have not shared in the general prosperity—and that duty we intend to discharge.' Nothing has been done for this large section of the community since.
I am a Tory, and voted Tory, but thousands of us have been sadly disillusioned. We arc what the Spectator called us a few years ago—'The Non- striking New Poor'! How apt! I would go further and say we are the 'Forgotten.
Ivy Hatch, Sevenoaks, Kent
R. 1-10WARI)
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