I would like to respond to the

reader who claims that they would anticipate the number of charges brought as a result of drunkeness in Marlborough over Christmas would be 75 per cent less than in 1903 (Gazette & Herald letters, January 8).

Presumably this is because

detection rates are so low and the CPS so overloaded that behaviour which would have been deemed as

completely unacceptable in 1903 is now seen as the status quo in a typical rural market town in the UK on a

Friday and Saturday night.

My experience of nights out in a modern market town are ones where you spend your time dodging the

violence, bad language, graffiti and public performance of bodily function of many hundreds of immature drinkers that are supposed to be

controlled by two part-time policemen or women in a Panda car.

This behaviour gets progressively worse every year and is a sad

indictment of the quality of parenting, education, government, social engineering and moral guidance in 2003.

This is not a criticism of the over- stretched police who have no chance in dealing with these matters if frankly no-one else cares.

S Parker

Calne