SIR – Some 150 years ago, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem which he called The Young British Soldier. It gave advice on a number of aspects of military life including the following: When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

The implication being that it was better to die than to be taken prisoner by the Afghans. Fast forward to the case of Sergeant Alexander Blackman, who Bryan Hanson (Letters, December 11) believes has been harshly treated and, another side to the argument is revealed.

These days the Geneva Convention lays down rules for the treatment of prisoners which all soldiers will hope will apply if they are captured.

The Taliban are generally thought not to have any respect for such niceties, but in the fond hope that one day they might, it is essential that the British Army never gives an enemy a reason to ignore them.

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley