• I AM writing in response to Jacob Simon’s first suggested change to Freedom Pass rules, (We need the Freedom Pass, May 28).

He proposes that eligibility for the pass should kick in at the state retirement age rather than the current age of 60. There are however many women in the borough who are not part of the educated, wealthy middle class élite.

Many women born in the 1950s have struggled all their lives with inferior education, lower rates of pay compared with men (as we have seen in at least two legal cases in middle class circles; and God knows how many potential cases there are in other circles), and lower and interrupted income due to time spent bringing up children etc.

Then the pension age was changed from 60 to 66, depriving those women of tens of thousands of pension money which they had been expecting and not, so I understand, giving them enough time to prepare for the deficit.

Now he appears to want to take their Freedom Pass away too. I suspect he is not an unkind man and may not have thought of that point.

I do however agree with his second paragraph that those on their way to full-time paid work should pay, if that is of any consolation. I but must fly the flag for thousands of deprived women.

ROSALIND STEWART
Address supplied