ORDERING some mince in Wilson’s Butchers in Huntington, I was asked for the amount I required.

I made a claw-like shape with my hand and said: “This much.”

Thinking later over the claw measurement, I realised we don’t use weights or measures any more as measurement.

We put an amount of petrol in the car, we order foodstuff by numbers, milk by size of containers.

We order things by small/medium/large amounts.

Babies are weighed in kilos and measured in centimetres, but most people only relate them to pounds and ounces and height by feet and inches.

Most older people have become illiterate as far as weights and measures are concerned.

D M Deamer, Monkgate, York