LIKE his father before him, my father was a signwriter. Often he worked at home and I picture him now writing in a well-lit corner of the dining room.

One day, he was working on an Honours List board for the Royal Grammar School, Worcester, and I was anxious for him to finish as he'd promised to take me to a football match at St George's Lane.

Unusually, he was experiencing problems with one particular letter which, try as he might, did not form to his satisfaction. Eventually, he took the letter right out and began again.

Exasperated, I asked him: "How much are you being paid for this?" "A ha'penny a letter," he replied.

"Do you realise you've been working 20 minutes for a halfpenny?"

I'd never before or since known him lose his temper, but he turned angrily upon me.

"It's not what I am being paid that matters but the honour of being allowed to do it. That board will be there for people to read long after I'm dead and gone."

On the 55th anniversary of his death, I have to reflect that he was right and the same is to be said of much of his and my grandfather's work, still to be seen in the city.

But what a difference between this and today's attitudes.

JOHN HINTON,

Worcester.