THE tragedy of the Morecambe Bay cockle pickers and the discovery of the squalid conditions in which the illegal immigrants are housed called to mind an experience, a few years ago, of myself and my daughter.

She was wanting to buy a house and found one that seemed suitable at an estate agents. The house was in the triangle between Haxby Road, Wigginton Road and the Nestle factory. The estate agents were unwilling to provide a staff member to accompany my daughter to view this house.

One morning my daughter and I knocked on the door of the house. The door was opened by a Chinese woman who invited us in. The hall was filled from floor to ceiling with nets of vegetables and we had to turn sideways to sidle down between the wall and the vegetables to get to the kitchen.

We were then taken to the living room which was full of beds with hardly room to move between them. There was no other furniture.

On the beds sat young Chinese of both sexes. This was all repeated in the three bedrooms upstairs.

As we were leaving I asked the woman the reason for the sale thinking it was her house. She said the owner had returned to Hong Kong. We both thought the bathroom and kitchen floors were also used for sleeping and that there were about 20 Chinese people living there.

People who visit restaurants run by immigrants may wish to consider how much their patronage is a cause of illegal immigration to this country.

J I Stockton,

Ridgeway,

York.

Updated: 10:10 Wednesday, February 25, 2004