I WAS very angry when I read your report about the travelling family camped between York and Stamford Bridge (October 19).

I am sad that you chose to print such exaggerated claims.

Having discussed one of the claims with two farmer friends we were left wondering how something other than a herd of bison could have eaten their way through "more than £1,000" of crops.

Was it commercial asparagus or a crop of truffles? Did your one anonymous person really know what a "trail of devastation" looks like? Driving through Warthill I looked for twisted and toppled buildings, trees scattered like matchstalks, dead animals and gushing water.

No, still the neat and tidy gardens, hanging baskets and satellite dishes. I saw one hedge a bit nibbled, but there was a chubby little girl leading a Thelwell-style horse a bit further up the road. I wonder is she was one of the offending family?

Perhaps your informant may like to take up some dustbins for the family and make sure they are emptied weekly, a service these people, unlike him, do not enjoy.

Travellers are a part of our cultural heritage, they have lived this way of life for thousands of years. They are generous and kind people, in touch with the countryside in a way that we can only guess at.

Do we really want everyone to be like us in our nice houses in nice villages? A little tolerance and respect for a people who have, over the centuries, been persecuted and "moved on" would not go amiss.

Miss C Pode,

Birchwood Drive,

Rillington, Malton.