SIR - As Paul Marshall complains about smoking outside pubs, (T&A, March 20), he asks the readers if they get his drift that the traffic fumes make him so sick that he has to return inside.

I'm sorry but I don't get his drift; he chooses to ignore medical advice and the hellish price of cigarettes to smoke at the pub, knowing full well the consequences he must face.

The only drift I get is the poetic justice of him having to experience nausea from traffic fumes, when I've had to suffer similar from smokers inside public buildings for years.

I've never been an avid anti-smoker, but I have advocated the return of taprooms or smoking rooms in public houses for many years.

But, as the pub owners have pulled these rooms out to become trendy, without much opposition other than the gallant CAMRA members, the time has now gone for this compromise.

I remember the smokers infesting the lounges and best rooms in the Seventies and deserting the taprooms in droves.

In consequence, the demise of the taproom has also hastened the inevitablility of a smoking ban in pubs. I hope Mr Marshall gets my drift.

Gerald Knowles, Bradford Road, Idle