SIR - No doubt, in this hot spell, many T&A readers are finding sleep a problem.

In the small hours I'm amusing myself with a book of the cartoons of the wonderful Giles published in the bleak years of post-war austerity when Clem Attlee and his Labour Government established the welfare state.

The material provides a lovely snapshot of a long-gone age when this thin, bespectacled Prime Minister, who had neither hair nor a manic grin, took our people through a testing time and gave us, among other treasures, our National Health Service.

His wife was equally modest, the spivs were kept firmly out of government and the nearest the police got to 10 Downing Street was to be on duty outside it.

Sadly Clem Attlee couldn't play tennis and wasn't really very athletic, but I suspect he could be turning in his grave at present. He was that sorta guy'!

Sid Brown, Glenhurst Road, Shipley