CARELESS talk costs lives. A message we all knew the truth of when our country was under threat from within during the Second World War.

Then, it was to guard against German spies in our midst. Today, we are told there are now 1,600 home-grown terrorists eager to commit random slaughter here.

In York, we are aware of the difficult decisions our intelligence forces have to take to maintain secrecy about what they know about our enemies. We learned it after the great York air raid of April 29, 1942, when 20 German bombers attacked the undefended city for two hours.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill knew about the impending raid because we had cracked the German coding machine. The valuable information he was getting justified his decision not to save York by bringing in noticeable defences.

Many more lives were saved when our forces invaded Europe, bringing ultimate victory.

We were all shocked by 7/7 and it is terrible for those who lost dear ones and suffered themselves, but the best gift we could give enemies is to broadcast information about our intelligence network to the world.

Media must beware of providing information which can be used against us just to get a story. They are not aware of other things going on. Rightly so.

George Appleby, Clifton, York.