SIR – I was amazed to read a headline in the national press expressing disgust that we were being fed food fertilised by our own sewage. Surely this is in the nature of things?

At my childhood village home the cess-pit that served two brick-built toilets was emptied as required, spread on the huge vegetable patches and after being sprinked with lime, dug in. Folk with bucket toilets dug a trench across the garden, emptied the bucket along it, limed, and buried it. Runner beans were always planted in one of these trenches.

In due course on the farms basic slag from the sewage farms was hauled to the fields in leaky old carts. The smell hung around for days. I am a product of such village husbandry and at aged 88, I do not have a solitary wrinkle.

S BEARD, Worcester.