Letter: A sneer clothed as journalism

I TOO am 'overweight and wear shapeless tracksuits', just like Kath Kelly, subject of Linda Grant's contribution to the latest wave of social-worker bashing by the press ('Just another family under fire', 28 February). Unlike Mrs Kelly, however, I am middle- class, childless and, thank God, employed. What relevance, therefore, attaches to our respective body sizes and sartorial preference? Personally, I don't give a damn what upmarket Sunday newspaper journalists think of the way I look, but if, like Mrs Kelly, I had had to put up with years of unemployment, child-rearing, depression and hassles with the police, I think I'd be pretty miffed to find my personal appearance irrelevantly sneered at by someone I'd invited into my home to do an ostensibly sympathetic article.

And no, I'm not a social worker.

Phil Simmons

Newark, Notts