AUGUST 7, 1999 was a significant day in my death.

At 4am on that day, my daughter drove me to A&E Ronkswood as fast as she could. If I had waited for an ambulance to find my address on this relatively new estate, and had she stuck to the speed limits, or if the police had stopped her, then resuscitation by the ever-wonderful staff waiting for me at A&E Ronkswood would have been in vain.

For within one minute of my arrival, I suffered a cardiac arrest.

Had my address been other than the Link area of Malvern, if there had been even a small amount of road traffic, or had I the misfortune to have lived in the Kidderminster area, then the die, so to speak, would have been cast.

The people of Wyre Forest know it, the staff at Ronkswood knows and I certainly know it.

There is little doubt that there is a "Dr Beeching" programme being carried out on the Worcestershire & Herefordshire Health Service which, as with the railway closures isolates many rural areas.

Unless, God forbid, something actually happens to Mr Lock (Lock Lashes Out, Evening News, July 3) or to his family, then I think he will not be convinced that the whole of Worcestershire cannot be served by one hospital, hence his vociferous attack and rejection of voters' feelings.

Whatever the reasons for the his whinging backlash at Dr Richard Taylor, there is no justification for David Lock's attitude to the 26,000 residents of Wyre Forest who voted him out on an issue that allowed the public to demonstrate their belief in the only way they could.... with their votes.

Wyre Forest has, I feel, rid itself of a poor and ungracious loser in Mr Lock. Had he been elected, he would not have represented the true feelings of people of Wyre Forest.

RICHARD BROWN, Malvern.