I WAS fortunate to receive my excellent education at York's Queen Anne Grammar School in the 1950s.

When it was closed by the then Labour council, my former history teacher described it as "the murder of the great school."

It saddens me that Frank Dobson, ex-health minister, and Vince Caple, Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, who both went to York grammar schools, support the destruction of the remaining grammars, the only real chance of a decent education for working-class children, especially in inner cities.

I hear York's parents are mainly happy with standards in their schools. I hope they remain so. I taught in inner London for 25 years, and became horrified by declining standards and achievement. A quarter of children, and in many schools, a higher proportion, leave London primary schools unable to read, write or add up.

Now, New Labour, ignoring the fact that we are Europe's most ill-educated nation, is introducing yet another initiative, yet another curriculum.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson has decreed every lesson should have some content of the promotion of multiculturalism and diversity. Lessons in citizenship sound fine, but only as long as our children are the right kind of citizens, and do not dissent from the political views being taught.

In my former schools, Muslims were granted permission to remove their children from any lesson of which they did not approve, not only morning assemblies, which were, in any case, increasingly secular. I suggest York parents remove their children from lessons if they feel they have been brainwashed.

Neither should they forget that this Government wants to get as many children as possible into state-run nurseries, all the easier to mould young minds.

Carole Tucker, Hillside Gardens, Highgate, London.