SIR – I was conscripted in 1955 and was paid 28 shillings or £1.40 a week for the first six months. Two years later this had risen to £4.75 – the regular rate for a four-star corporal.

During my service, I was variously employed as a skivvy in the sergeant’s mess, medical centre clerk, company office typist, general dogsbody with the married quarters maintenance team and night watchman at the Buffs’ tent during the Canterbury Cricket Festival.

Even though we were trained soldiers, there were so many of us and so poorly paid that there was never any need to employ civilians. But National Service ended in 1963, so thereafter, pay rates had to be greatly increased to recruit and retain a volunteer army. This quickly became an expensive resource that could no longer be wasted on tasks which could be done equally well by non-military personnel.

I hope, therefore, that our Prime Minister will ignore Terry Tordoff’s advice to cut back on the ‘pen-pusher brigade’. I know – even if he doesn’t – that there are a few ‘dead wood’ jobs in the MOD, because the majority are the civilian support on which our armed services depend to remain an effective fighting force.

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley