In a few weeks' time some 13.2 million pensioners will be receiving their annual £10 Christmas Bonus payments.

This is the 28th year that this bonus has been paid, having been introduced by Sir Edward Heath's Tory Government in 1972.

A Commons Pension debate earlier this year revealed that had this £10 bonus been increased in line with the retail prices index since it was introduced, it would be worth £88.75 this year.

In 1972 there were 7.8 million pensioners eligible for this bonus that number has almost doubled.

In this period we have had seven different cycles of Government, four Tory and three Labour, covering 20 years of Tory and eight years of Labour administration. Yet not one of these Governments has increased this payment from £10.

I would like to pay my respects to Sir Edward Heath for remembering us grey wrinklies all those years ago. Yet, because of his dedicated stance on Europe, he has to pay a heavy price for his forthright views. Snubbed, ignored, sent to Coventry by his Tory Party's right wing hawks, he sits in lonely isolation at the far right end of the opposition front bench.

Although I have never voted Tory in my 73 years, I take my hat off to him. When he retires at the next election to his home in Salisbury, I would like to wish him many more years of peaceful and happy retirement.

He has earned it. He will always be remembered by me respectfully as Sir Edward. But as each Christmas draws near, he will festively be remembered by me as Ten Pound Ted.

NORMAN JEFFERIES

Midwinter Gardens, Lower Stratton