LAST Saturday I witnessed for the second time in two weeks a harassed mum shielding her small child as he relieved himself against a wall (in the little passageway leading from Church Street to the back of Somerfield).

I think this is what used to be called (and may still be for all I know) 'committing a public nuisance'.

Not that I'd have grassed her up since the poor woman was clearly at her wits' end: a fractious child who simply can't hang on any longer, no public loo within easy distance - what on earth was she supposed to do?

What I find most baffling about this entire business is that Malvern exists basically as a tourist town (the same applies to Upton). Tourist towns are supposed to be tourist-friendly. One of the most crucial amenities in a tourist town is a public loo - and frankly the more there are the better. Closing down public loos seems to me not just a stupendously bad idea but an act of sheer madness.

And it's really no good arguing that the Grange Road toilet is still open. What, if for some reason, it has to close (for cleaning, because of vandalism, etc)? Tourists - Malvern's life-blood - will thus have nowhere to go.

CHRISTOPHER LOWDER, Cradley.