DEAR EDITOR - YOUR recent front page main story "Letters are Cruel" - regarding a slimming mail shot really got to me.

It is only now, some few days later, that I can bear to sit down and pen these few lines.

It is not just the ladies who suffer in this way. I am a scrawny seven-stone weakling who wishes to remain so. I am happy with myself and apart from not going to the seaside (never go near sandy places for obvious reasons) or being selected as a prop forward for the British Lions, I lead a full life.

Have I been left alone - no way. I keep getting mail shots from health and fitness clubs, weight-training centres etc, all pleading with me to take up their offers and turn myself into a 14-stone he-man who would turn heads and have lots of women running after him.

It was so cruel, vile and insensitive and as you can imagine, I was distraught and traumatised into the bargain.

How did I get over it? Well I sat down and thought back over some of the momentous events of this year 2001, and the genuine suffering and agony endured by so many in different parts of the world.

I then went out and bought a large waste paper bin, told myself I was now an adult and ought to start and act like one.

Finally, I bought a dictionary and resolved only to use words like 'traumatised,' 'cruel,' etc in their proper meaning.

Go and do thou likewise and you too will feel better.

Scrawny.

Name and address supplied