I WANTED to appeal to your readers to ask them to keep their used stamps this Christmas and donate them to Kidney Care UK to help us raise much needed funds for kidney patients.

Every Christmas more than one billion cards are sent in the UK and for every 1kg of used stamps donated we can raise as much as £20 to help people with chronic kidney disease.

There are 64,000 people being treated for kidney failure in the UK right now and 99 people are currently waiting for a transplant in North Yorkshire.

Your support will help us to provide practical, financial and emotional support for kidney patients and their families when they need it most; we believe no-one should face kidney disease alone, and especially not at Christmas.

You can read and download our step by step guide to collecting and donating used stamps at www.kidneycareuk.org We hope all of your readers have a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

Paddy Tabor, Chief executive, Kidney Care UK, St Mary’s Close, Alton

Liver and learn over gout

WHILE the following advice may not be any use to Pamela Frankland, hopefully someone else may benefit and, who knows, perhaps Ms Frankland will too.

I suffered a sudden onrush of gout over 30 years ago and an extremely painful affliction it is.

A blood-test was done and, at the follow-up appointment with the doctor, he confirmed it was gout, prescribed allopurinol, and informed me that taking the medication was long term.

Not being entirely happy at the thought of having to take long term medication, I embarked on some research into gout.

This was long before the internet and I had to delve into my Readers Digest Medical Guide.

I discovered there were several triggers for gout, among them being liver.

At the time a friend worked at a local slaughterhouse and, one day, he had asked if I liked liver.

Following my affirming that I did like liver I had been presented, virtually on a daily basis, with huge amounts of liver.

Being 100 per cent a Tyke my credo was “waste not, want not” and those prodigious amounts of liver were duly consumed.

Following my research I informed my friend that my days of liver eating were over and told him that I thought there was a connection between my liver consumption and gout.

The gout eventually cleared up and I have never experienced it again.

Do I shun liver now? In fact I don’t.

However, I only eat it in sensible amounts and not very often.

I was eating huge amounts of liver and normal servings will do no harm at all.

Philip Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge

Keep donating to help young children

EVERYONE at the Listening For Life Centre (the Ear Trust) is so grateful to readers of The Press for their generosity over the last year.

You have raised substantial funds which have enabled the department to buy many necessary items for assessment and after care of Yorkshire’s deaf children having a cochlear implant, as well as items such as musical instruments to teach sound and sensory toys for those who are not only deaf but have severe sight problems too.

May I ask that donations of unwanted jewellery, watches or any small unwanted antiques continue in 2018 please.

Call Eunice on 01347 810325 and more information can be given.

Mrs E Birch, Coombs Close, Sutton-on-the-Forest, York Editor’s note: We are running this letter again because we omitted contact details when we first published it.