IN my distant childhood, nearly every family had an "Aunty Daisy", who was invariably an attractive, elderly, unmarried woman.

It was only in later years that I understood the blasphemy that had brought this about.

The year, 1914 - "500,000 more men are needed". The Somme - and 57,000 British soldiers dead and wounded in just 24 hours. Then 1916... married men 18 to 41 conscripted.

By 1918, 723,000 British dead.

And in 2002, the politicians are sleepwalking us into another open-ended war.

FRANK L JONES, Malvern.