Letter: Living in a fortress

Letter: Living in a fortress

Sir: How many of your readers were angered by "ex-con" Chris Buckland's bland contribution to your magazine ("How to beat burglars", 30 August)?

He advises us to turn our homes into costly imitations of Fort Knox, ignoring the obvious fact that it is people like him who make it necessary for us to spend hundreds of pounds on complicated security arrangements that make our houses into our prisons.

Since I had the Crime Prevention Officer's advice and the locksmith's attentions, I can no longer fling my windows open on hot nights, my side- alley has to be gated (and with a special type of unclimbable gate), my garden re-fenced, every outer door has three or four bolts on it, I have an alarm that keeps going off, and now Mr Buckland tells me I need grilles to keep him and his like out.

I wonder how many families he has made wretched by breaking into their homes and stealing their things, to gain the know-how to earn money from you telling us about his mean, rotten, ruthless and criminal tricks?

LYNNE REID BANKS

London W13