I wholeheartedly support your front page message to prepare for a cold winter. The Times echoes the warning this week.

It tells us that wrapping up warm prevents colds is not an old wives' tale. Blood vessels contract when chilled and valuable white corpuscles cannot get through to fight off infection. So particularly elderly folks like me need our mufflers, woolly vests, bed socks and any other garment that keeps out the cold. I have an Aran shawl for wrapping up in and is especially good when reading in bed. The elderly should be encouraged to keep the heating on 24 hours, it is no more expensive once the fabric of the house gets warm - and prevents droughts. The Times goes onto to extol hot food, they recommend hot soups for lunch which is another of my pet theories for surviving the cold along with hot porridge for breakfast. They especially mention chicken soup which they seem to think has some particular potency. Thus vindicating a nonagenarian Holocaust survivor interviewed by London TV at an old peoples' lunch club in Golders Green, during the last flu epidemic, who had no doubts of the antibiotic value of chicken and barley soup. An old Jewish wife's tale, no doubt!

It doesn't have to be Kosher, folks, to be effective; a couple of chicken pieces, lots of rough chopped root veges and onions and a handful of pearl barley, a bullion cube and pint of water simmered for a couple of hours will make 2/3 big helpings and will keep in the fridge. Ring the changes with breast of lamb, or a couple of pieces of ox tail - do not trim off the fat, I really deplore this super-market practice of skinning joints of lamb, robbing it of nutrient and flavour - skim off excess when cold. Cheap and easy, as is a knuckle of bacon and split peas or belly of pork and haricot beans, are warming and really more-ish.

Hot drinks are another good way of defeating the cold. The old favourites: Bovril and cocoa, kept the men at sea in the Western Approaches and Arctic convoys functioning in the most inhospitable conditions of the war - it was rumoured at the time that they were one of our secret weapons, keeping out the cold and damp and keeping the lads cheerful - it's a fact!

Sheila Jones (Mrs), New Road, Offenham, Evesham.