SIR – I read John Burgess’s letter about bovine TB with some confusion. He says let’s all work towards preventing the spread of bovine TB, but doesn’t suggest how we all can.

When the concept of becoming vegan is put forward, he not only rejects the idea, but he has a little rant about the intolerant sound of vegan jackboots marching.

Now this really has got me bemused! I have never heard such a thing myself (I accept that he is trying to be metaphorical).

I have never, for example, seen a television advertisement promoting veganism, but have seen vast numbers promoting burgers, chicken, turkey, bacon, lamb, etc.

The same with radio and television food programmes; they are almost entirely about meat and fish.

Surely this suggests that the jackboot is actually on the other foot?

Why do meat eaters get so upset about vegetarians and vegans? It’s almost as if they feel threatened.

Personally I haven’t eaten meat for 30-odd years, but hope I don’t make Mr Burgess or anyone else feel uncomfortable about it.

We live our lives according to our understanding of how the world works, don’t we, so I see little point in trying to persuade anybody that they are wrong to behave in certain ways. I even buy and cook meat for my 92-year-old mum (albeit uncomfortably).

Obviously nobody can realistically expect the world suddenly to become vegan: such changes evolve over long periods.

Smoking, for example, is slowly becoming anti-social in the western world, and I suspect in 100 or 200 years people will find it hard to understand that it was once acceptable.

However, tobacco farmers and tobacconists aren’t all going out of business, any more than people involved with the slave trade burned their ships and starved to death when that eventually became unacceptable; they simply adapted over a period to alternatives.

Ditto people making a living from bear baiting, cock fighting, etc.

Landscapes, farms, etc. evolve in fits and starts, and will continue to do so.

Simon Vaughan-Spencer

Malvern