As an S&N pensioner, I read your article about the Queens closing with some interest (Evening Press, January 28).

I worked for John Smiths from 1962 to 1996. When I started, the brewing industry was very labour intensive but, over the years, technology has taken over and I doubt if there is a quarter of the labour force that there was in the Sixties and Seventies.

Also, the three breweries in Tadcaster have always relied on workers from the surrounding villages and York to fill vacancies, more so in the past.

I think that it is a shame that the Queens has closed for all the reasons stated. However, many pensioners, like myself, would need to travel to the Queens by car, which means drinking and driving, which puts me, and probably others, off going.

Just as important as the closing of the Queens, possibly even more so to the lady pensioners, and something I am surprised wasn't mentioned to your reporter, is the stopping of the annual pensioners reunion lunch, paid for mostly by the company. At the last one in December, some 270 attended.

Someone from the management made a speech and said that the lunch was not about a free meal and drinks, more about keeping in touch and enjoying the company of old friends and colleagues, many life long associations.

S&N is now an international brewer and, as such, probably has no room for sentiment which, for the loyal John Smiths pensioners, some with a working life time of service to the company, is a crying shame.

R Osborne,

Springbank Avenue,

Dunnington.

Updated: 11:27 Monday, January 31, 2005