As a pensioner, I would like to reply to the so-called Sage of Sussex, Adam Trimingham, regarding his disgraceful column on old age pensioners.

The reference to fewer people working to support us was offensive. What about the contributions pensioners made between the ages of 14 and 65, including military service? If anything, we deserve more government help. Millions of pounds are wasted on things such as the Millennium Dome, millions go abroad to help the poor and needy in other countries, but pensioners here can still exist on £78 a week it seems.

Saying pensioners make no provision for our old age is stupid. I bought two houses and helped my daughter with her first housebuying efforts.

What does Adam know about the 1930s anyway? Like most of his generation, who think the world began with them, he has only book-learned the subject. When I was a child during that time, my family were on Parish Relief. We didn't have money, just tickets for food and clothing, but we were all happier then than many seem these days.

What does Adam mean, about us not having to worry about a mortgage because we own our homes? We have bigger concerns than that. We have to worry about our house being sold off if we get ill and need care in a home which then closes when the funds from our house sale runs out.

Where does he get the idea of cheap fares for pensioners? Fares should be free, as they are in many other places. Not every pensioner gets a free TV licence either, as Adam well knows.

Those in poor health do not all have themselves to blame either. Try lying in a cave for hours in nine inches of water, as was the case for some in the Korean war.

Why harp on about us living to a ripe old age and the financial cost to the public being huge? Statements such as this give a very negative and inaccurate view of pensioners to younger people.

-Gordon Dean, St Lukes Road, Brighton