May I offer a crumb of comfort to Manus McGrogan (Letters, March 3)? For what it is worth, I do not believe such a person as Ivor Caplin MP exists.

Surely he is a figment of an over-heated imagination and is, in fact, a rubber blow-up doll, which is carefully wrapped in tissue paper and kept in a cupboard at party head office until required.

At the beginning of the year, I noticed that a Northern MP was trying to promote a Private Member's Bill and wrote to him to express my gratitude that someone was attempting to do something about a troublesome problem.

Within a week, I had a charming letter back in which it was suggested a letter to my own MP would help.

I duly wrote to Mr Caplin as I was assured by the local information bureau he is my Member of Parliament. The letter was signed by five or six like-minded neighbours.

On January 23, I received two lines from a female personage saying she was the constituency office manager and that I should be written to by Mr Caplin in due course. Since then, nothing.

There has been time to give some thought to the matter and, having eliminated the impossible, I can only conclude that, like the Welfare State or democracy, to name but two, Mr Caplin is a figure of the imagination.

When at some future date our beloved leader and his friends finally succeed in reducing us to complete serfdom, perhaps we may hope that the US will launch an army, with or without UN agreement, to save us.

-George Williams, Furze Hill, Hove