SIR – Stuart Herdson, secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers writes: “I have little patience with those who lived through the war years calling today’s generation of pupils and staff ‘namby pamby’,” (Letters, December 6).

How can he judge unless he lived at the time? History does not come from the written record alone, as he might learn.

He goes on to say: “If things were so good in the Forties, why was the child death rate so much higher than today?”

I would suggest to him that enemy bombs dropping from the skies on to most major cities could have had an effect, or would he disagree with that?

Also, the NHS had not been created, which meant paying for doctor bills that poor people could ill afford, unlike the rich.

S Pickup, Sulby Grove, Bradford