Letter: Age of the saver

Age of the saver

Sir: We say we save "for a rainy day"; yet when it rains we want someone else to buy the umbrella. If the elderly can afford to go into a private nursing home, they should pay the total costs: that is what they saved up for.

My mother is paying pounds 447 a week in a private nursing home. Of course she sold her house: she did not need it. It may well be that she has little money to leave me and my sister. But she has loved us, brought us up, given us a good education and now is allowing us to live profitable lives. I have no wish to demand that the state pays for her nursing care so that I may have more of the money she and my father saved so that they could stay independent of us.

JOHN D ANDERSON

Shipley, West Yorkshire