MR Farnsworth gives no indication of his age, so I am not sure whether he is a young or middle aged man feeling sorry for himself (Letter, February 16).

I feel I must apologise for living all of my 75 years. I worked, paid taxes and National Insurance contributions for 44 years, I contributed into the British Rail pension scheme more than I could afford at the time by making sacrifices to my lifestyle. I only got out of it what I had paid in.

When my wife and I bought our house in 1966, that we still live in, we had to settle for the basic structure.

Our furniture was mainly secondhand. Our social life was non-existent.

If you did not have cash in your pocket, you did not buy it. We had no such thing as a credit card, unlike today where the younger generation have to have everything brand new and think nothing about spending a lot of money on a night out.

What my wife and I have now we have earned by making sacrifices most of our lives.

Only in later life have we been able to enjoy the benefits of being frugal in our early married life.

I am reasonably fit, so I do not absorb much of the NHS budget, although I do get free prescriptions and a free bus pass.

I hope that when Mr Farnsworth gets old he will decline free prescriptions, free bus pass and decline to go into hospital for treatment that is paid for by the taxpayer.

A P Cox, Heath Close, Holgate, York