Outraged pensioner sent Brown a cheque for 75p. He cashed it

Nora Knight was incensed by the 75 pence a week rise in the state pension and wrote to Gordon Brown to tell him so. Giving Britain's 11 million pensioners such a measly amount was "outrageous and insulting", she said.

Nora Knight was incensed by the 75 pence a week rise in the state pension and wrote to Gordon Brown to tell him so. Giving Britain's 11 million pensioners such a measly amount was "outrageous and insulting", she said.

The pensioner even sent the Chancellor of the Exchequer a cheque for 75p to underline her disgust. What she did not expect was to have it cashed. But there it was on her Barclays statement for July: cheque number 101274, posted to Gordon Brown at 11 Downing Street, had been cashed on 24 July for £0.75.

"I couldn't believe my eyes. I went back to my chequebook to check it was the same amount, and it was," Mrs Knight said yesterday. "I don't believe for a moment he cashed it himself, but somebody in the office did."

Mrs Knight, 78, lives in retirement with her husband Denis, a former English teacher who is 79 tomorrow, in a small village in Devon. She is far from being a militant but she is a loyal Labour voter. They backed Labour in 1945 when Clement Atlee won the landslide election which paved the way for Britain's welfare system. Mr Knight was even a party member. And that track record, said Mrs Knight, increases her sense of betrayal.

"I'm just a furious pensioner. Here we are, having reached this age, having been through the war and luckily survived it," she said. "It's all very well having Battle of Britain programmes and saying we're wonderful, but what about those of us who are left?

"I'm just fed up with Labour detaching us all. I feel that we've all just been shoved overboard. They will find at the next election that they will have a really nasty shock."

The Government, she said, should abandon its means-tested benefits for the poorest pensioners and restore the link between pensions and increases in average earnings.

Mrs Knight is one of 40 pensioners to have sent back token sums of money, and protests are still trickling in. The Treasury now has a separate account with about £50 sitting in it, which no one appears to have a use for. "Generally, unsolicited payments go into the Consolidated Fund. This money is in a special account. We know where the money has come from but we're looking at how to treat it," a spokeswoman said.

Campaigners with Age Concern and the National Pensioners Convention said some pensioners had sent in bagfuls of pennies and peanuts.