I MUST challenge my near neighbour Alan Gerault’s thoughtless “I’m All Right Jack” suggestion (letters page February 8, 2011), that pensioners pay £1 a day for bus passes.
That’s £7 a week, £365 a year which many hard-up pensioners (mainly ladies) can ill afford as they struggle to survive on the worst state pension in Europe, just £97.65 a week, and a national disgrace.
Most of us do not enjoy cosy index-linked, inflation proof public sector pensions, and the free bus pass is essential to partly compensate for appalling low pensions.
Until the state pension is again linked to earnings, to enable many people to exist above subsistence level, I suggest Mr Gerault thinks more carefully before making further contentious public pronouncements in the press.
TONY FOWLE, Bradpole Road, Strouden Park, Bournemouth
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