HAVING witnessed the nauseating adolescent Brain of Britain contest on TV, I feel sorry for the contestants who for most part are traumatised by the experience, and are supported by their pushy parents.

For those pupils who have received results of the recent A- and AS-Level standards and may consider themselves a failure, speaking personally and having failed my 11-plus exam, I was later to discover this was only the first rung on the ladder of a learning curve.

This entailed attending technical college and two police colleges, including a crash course at a teachers’ training college. In both the north and south of the country, the world is your oyster.

There is nothing more rewarding than being employed within the NHS framework; after all, even university degree academics will require one or more of our emergency services, especially the aged and infirm, as my kith and kin will testify.

Kenneth Bowker, Vesper Walk, Huntington, York.