Dr Steve Waters (Letters, February 12) is right when he says we have nothing to fear from people from another land and culture.

Or at least from some of them. But why do they have to come to the overcrowded South-East? From reports I read, there are rows of empty houses in Accrington and points North.

I came to England in 1938 aged 17 when all recently arrived foreigners were interned in camps in Shropshire and the Isle of Man following the threat of the fifth column in France.

We were classified A,B or C, the last being refugees from Nazi oppression like myself, and released. It surely is a lesson for today.

I then continued my education and entered war work. I never asked for or was given public money. On the contrary, I paid my taxes and insurance contributions all my working life. There surely is no need for handouts to economic migrants today.

-Erich Blomberg, Madeira Drive, Brighton