Letter: My `counselling' after the war

Sir: I note that after each traumatic event or disaster, the papers and television announce that the victims are receiving counselling.

As we approach Remembrance Sunday, my thoughts go back to the last war - getting out at Dunkirk; later, as a prisoner of war, suffering the friendly fire from Allied bombers which killed some of my mates; watching the degradation and liquidation of the Jews; being on the "Death March" from Poland to Munich.

The only counselling I received on return to England was from a doctor on an airfield near Aylesbury, who, as I stood before him naked, showing him my badly set broken fingers and the multiple boils on my body, gave me a sympathetic smile.

No doubt the poor devils much worse off than us - the prisoners of the Japanese - received the same counselling. Could I, as a man of 78 years, having seen a bit of life, apply for the job of counsellor to the counsellors?

A W AYLWARD

London E4