I TAKE it that Keith Dewison is not one of the “rich” pensioners he talks about (HAS, Nov 7).

I did an apprenticeship on low wages, studied at night school till I was 25, and, even though I had a wife and three children, we did without for me to go to university at the age of 29.

All of this was to enable me to get the kind of job that had a good wage and pension.

I never smoked or gambled and drank very little. I put all my money into rearing my children and buying a nice house.

At times, I had three jobs to keep me out of debt.

My pension and savings were meant to enable me to have the kind of lifestyle in my old age I could only dream of when I was young.

Now, I find almost everything is means-tested and people who never bothered to work or save get their incomes boosted to equal or even better than mine.

So I do not want my bus pass and cold weather payment taken off me and if I choose to use it to go to Spain then it only means I have chosen to spend it in the sun rather than on the gas I would have used at home.

Tom Cooper, Durham City.