THE closure of the main pool at The Barbican has demonstrated how much we need two pools there. At times it gets very crowded, like swimming in a pool of piranhas.

It has not stopped us going and the regulars, many of us pensioners and disabled or both, are making the best of it. We have to because it is the only pool into which we can walk.

This is the second setback in the past few months, the first being the discriminatory rise of 52 per cent in the pensioners' admission fee for ten sessions against a 37 per cent addition to the normal rate. On the other hand, I suppose with our 75p a week state pension increase we can afford it.

At Kirkcaldy in Scotland pensioners pay exactly half the rate in York to swim in pools of the same type. If Kirkcaldy can manage it why not York?

Mike Wilks,

Aldwark, York.