3 AUGUST 1996, Page 23

British courtesy

Sir: May I mildly protest at Mr Lawrence Rickard's statement in his letter (13 July) that not since he was a young man has he seen a young person offer an elderly person a seat on public transport?

I have been going to England on vacation annually for the last ten years, and I should say that people offer me a seat at least half the time in my many trips on the Under- ground in London. It's true that I am 80 years old, but I think it's a spry 80. Courtesy may be endangered everywhere, but it is far from dead in Britain.

T.F. Gossett

2091 Royal] Drive, Winston-Salem, North Carolina