YP Letters: When playing out kept us all fit and healthy

READING Sarah Todd’s recent column on healthy living set me thinking about children’s outdoor action games. Ball games gave you eye and hand co-ordination which stood you in good stead when you moved on to netball, rounders and hockey.

We were lucky to have a lean-to roof on a building​,​ which came in very useful for endless bouncing ball games. Other games were skipping (there were rhymes you chanted as you skipped), hopscotch and so on.

All of these games gave you good exercise – no chance of getting obese​,​ especially on wartime rations​!

From Allan Davies, Augusta Park, Grimsby.

IT was not the NHS that was unaffordable after the Second World War, it was the cost of rearmament (some £3,600 million over three years) which overwhelmed the public finances.

Over a longer period, almost all our near European neighbours have spent a higher proportion of their income on their health systems, which 
are financed out of higher tax levels.

Moreover, many studies of the NHS show that its management is at least as good as other systems, and far better than the private system in the USA.