SIR - In bygone days, people with mental disorders were treated as criminals and locked away in a lunatic asylum. If we ever thought anything about them, it was as a subject for ribald amusement, but more often as something distasteful to which respectable people did not refer.
Perhaps we were kinder then, for as your correspondent, Jim Evans, shrewdly observes (Letters January 20) they are "not always helped by being placed on their own" and lack "the social skills to make a success of living in the community".
In the asylum, they at least had the company of one another, and could indulge a simple sense of humour without hostility or ridicule. As a registered nurse, I too had experience of caring for the mentally unwell, but that was in the armed forces. In civilian life as a housing rent collector I could see there was another point of view. No one wanted a "nutter" for a neighbour. Where one was found it was a subject of constant complaint.
Tolerance and sympathy were simply not understood. The closure of a mental hostel is not only about saving cash but serves a popular purpose in removing mental ill health to a respectable distance. If politicians really wish to please the public they will abolish it altogether.
JOHN HINTON,
Worcester.
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