May I thank all the readers who commented on my return home from Narvik (Hero’s great escape, The Press, May 20).

I would like to explain that the original holiday was part funded by Hero’s Return, The Big Lottery, a fund which is available to all who served in the armed services.

The extra cost of coming home was paid for by “plastic”, which has to be repaid. But I still consider it well worth the cost.

There were at the least almost 400 British sailors in the cold waters of Ofotfjord who were denied the chance to return home. I was lucky.

The critic from Acomb was far luckier; he never went.

Bernard Hallas, Haxby, York.