Letter: Dignified old age

Sir: I read John Walsh's article with growing displeasure. To make fun of elderly people and their activities was in appalling bad taste.

Anyway, why all the fuss about a radio programme sponsored by Saga? Surely anything - anything - would be better than the nightly offering on TV of bad taste, appalling noise and inanities uttered by ill-dressed young men and half-naked women, all with an IQ of about 30.

If Saga can provide some decent music and good plays, I am all for it and so, I imagine, are many others - not necessarily OAPs.

"Third Age" as a description for us oldies is neither new nor American. An association called U3A - "University of the Third Age" - has been going for many years now, holding classes on many subjects (not knitting or care of grandchildren) and arranging visits to places of academic interest. I'm 86 and have been a member of the U3A for many years.

I do very much deplore J Walsh's comments on incontinence, Viagra, hair styles and funny clothes etc. Does he think it amusing - or clever?

Mrs ENID MANNING

Saxmundham, Suffolk