Michael O'Reilly (Letters, October 15) has a very good memory regarding the orange bikes.

The only fact he was out on was the date. As the editor's note pointed out, they were in use in the late Sixties.

The idea to provide a form of free transport for the general public was that of Worthing Young Liberals, of which I was chairman at the time.

Its origins were in Holland, where several hundred white bicycles were distributed around Amsterdam by a radical youth organisation to provide transportation in the city.

Ours was a more modest venture but was used by many, including the first European students who began arriving in Worthing to study English at the various language schools being set up in the town at the time.

To the best of my knowledge, no bikes ended up off the end of the pier, although there was the occasional visit to the police pound to collect them.

The bikes were even used in a television promotion slot for a group called The Orange Bicycle who, sadly, like many others of the era, never made it to the top.

Although it was a lighthearted venture, it had a serious purpose, namely to draw attention to the burgeoning car culture of the Sixties and the need for alternative modes of travel in towns and cities before everything ground to a halt - a problem the Government chose to ignore until the final decade of the last century.

Thanks, Mike, for reminding us of a time when politics was fun and interesting for young people and not the boring turn-off it appears to be for the present generation.

-Brian McLuskie, Adelaide Close, Worthing