Letter: Downshifting? We should be so lucky

How silly of the tens of thousands of us unwitting victims of downsizing and re-engineering. Now thanks to Geraldine Bedell ("Life and work in the balance", Review, 23 June) we know where we went wrong. All we had to do was to downshift our jobs and lifestyles. We could then manage on our reduced joint salaries of pounds 50,000 and slum it in our country "barn", our flat in London and our holiday place in Tuscany. How many people in this country could ever in their wildest dreams think of earning pounds 50,000 let alone downsizing it from pounds 100,000? Many are struggling to pay mortgages on modest homes and saving hard for two weeks' holiday a year, and they are the lucky ones. If more of the privileged few knew how 90 per cent of this country lived we would not have had to suffer from these management fads,which America (whence they came) is now having to rethink.

Richard Bartle

Swindon, Wiltshire