Letter: No help from lottery money

Sir: On the cover of last Saturday's Magazine you named my two daughters as beneficiaries of the lottery: "pounds 500 to Dea and Jane Blake of Basildon to go to baton-twirling contests in the USA" (1 July). This was the opposite of the truth.

Their grant was from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts (FSA), not the lottery, and it might well have been larger - and nearer to what my daughters require but for the lottery, whose effect has been to diminish the funds available to the FSA. My daughters are trying to raise money to go to America to compete for Britain in a sports event; the lottery is no help in such cases. It only supports capital projects.

Yours sincerely,

John Blake

Basildon, Essex

6 July