GROWING up in a broken, bankrupt Britain after the war was hard.

My soldier father came home in only the clothes he stood up in.

He had to start again at the age of 33.

Rationing gave us small portions of basic food and secondhand clothes.

Seven of my ten years at school I lived in a cottage with no running water inside and a dry toilet 20 feet from the back door.

Millions of families across Europe were trying to climb out of the hole created by Adolf Hitler.

This was poverty and austerity.

If the population keeps increasing, we have three choices: workers pay more tax; those who don’t work get less benefits, or; we borrow a fortune and finish up like Greece.

If you pay your own rent, you can have as many bedrooms as you like; if the state pays, you have to settle for less.

Children are the responsibility of the parents and nobody else.

My wife and myself started off poor, but are now comfortable with money to spare.

It was easy, it only took 50 years.

G P Rowe, Oakwood Close, Church Fenton