A friend of mine told me what recently happened to his 72-year-old mother.

She was widowed last year. Like many people in this town she and her husband were part of the London overspill in the 60s. He worked in Rover and they raised a family of three children. A scenario many of your readers will identify with. Her husband was seriously wounded in the Black Forest fighting for this country during the Second World War.

Her fridge freezer recently broke down and her family bought her a new one.

She phoned Swindon Council and explained she was a pensioner and asked them to dispose of her old freezer.

She was then told it would cost her £20.

What has this country come to when it can spend billions of pounds on asylum seekers, 11 million on chauffeur-driven cars for Ministers, millions on Quangos and yet we charge pensioners for taking their freezers away?

Come on Swindon Council, put this nonsense in the dustbin which it should never have left. Do you honestly believe the people who put you in agree with this?

BILL WILLIAMS

Merlin Way

Covingham

Swindon