K GREENHELD writes about others parking in parent and child bays ("Make space for us", July 22).

What is it about modern women that makes them so useless?

I see at many supermarkets, mothers and child bays nearer than disabled bays, how can this be right?

When I was young, mothers used to take two and three kids shopping with them on the bus.

No one had cars then, let alone two, so that the poor harassed mother of today can nip down to the shops in comfort.

Mothers of old also carried back the shopping while looking after the children and steering them across roads etc. This process was repeated three or four times a week, because folks didn't have freezers.

Why does a perfectly fit and healthy young mother of today need to be at the supermarket door to put her child into a shopping cart or buggy? Most car parks have cart bays all over the car park, so at most she has to walk 30 yards to find one.

W Elliott,

Kinbrace Road,

Hartlepool.

Updated: 09:26 Monday, July 26, 2004