SIR - My wife’s father was a greatly respected member of her local community. He was a special constable, a mason, the standard bearer for the British Legion and a friend to everyone.

He was called up in 1944 and sent to fight in Burma but returned a broken man destroyed by what he had seen in a year of savage fighting. He died at the tragically young age of 61 and after his funeral the whole village lined the route from the parish church to the cemetery in respectful silence remembering that they had lost one of their own

Then we have the likes of Piers Morgan grandstanding over the memory of Captain Tom Moore by criticising those who refuse to clap. Alan Bates (T&A letters, February 5) is absolutely tight to call out self-important nobodies like Morgan who hope their comments chime with popular sentiment but more importantly to call attention to themselves.

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley