As chair of the management committee of Home-Start Malvern Hills, I want to pay tribute to the support shown by the outgoing and previous mayors, Frances Victory and Whinray Coates, to this and other local charities.

We have also benefited from a grant from the town council, and the use of the fine premises on Belle Vue Terrace for our public launch.

Several projects for the benefit of the people of Malvern have been initiated by these ladies, and they have also reinstated an annual Civic Service in the Priory, thereby indicating a commitment to the whole life of the community, spiritual and ethical as well as commercial and material.

Last year I was invited to a public meeting of the town council, to ask permission for the local Bible Society group to donate a carved lectern for the Millennium Gospel. I found myself making the only positive contribution to a most unpleasant meeting.

I was appalled by the rudeness with which the mayor and the town clerk, Shirley Young, were addressed, both by councillors and members of the public, and by the vituperation which pervaded the meeting.

With the almost clean sweep of town council seats achieved by MTAG in last week's elections, we are promised less acrimony at council meetings. Good! But I hope they will also nurture healthy debate and disinterested democracy.

Heather R Williamson, Churchdown Road, Malvern.