Thank you for a heart-warming front page Christmas story about the kindnesses of people helping the wife of the postmaster at Hanley Swan, who was injured during a break-in.

Many thanks to Ms A Cross for her letter on the sad case of the death of Nicholas Lewtschuk. This was an unfortunate young man who needed care in the community and not harassment with an ASBO. ASBOs are no doubt needed for the badly behaved in the community but surely not for the mentally disturbed.

I am getting very tired of the over use of the term 'pc' in your newspaper. Do you think we could have a moratorium on it in 2006. It is becoming so boring with its related cliches: this week we had 'in the name of political correctness', 'the pc brigade', dogmatic views of the 'pc lobby', 'pc propaganda', and 'the pc crowd'.

What has this poor term done to deserve such abuse. In its original form it was designed to protect people from abuses such as racial and sexual harassment and religious hatred. So what's wrong with that? It's rather like the term 'nanny state' which has also become a stick with which to beat the Government. Nannies are good people who look after those who cannot look after themselves aren't they?

Please can we have no more minute by minute accounts of a bad day on the railways. These are so tedious. If that's all we've got to worry about we should think ourselves lucky in times of world poverty, warfare and natural disasters.

Mrs G M Holt, Oxford Square, Moorlands Road, Malvern.