SIR - I read L Grimshaw's letter (T&A, July 19) regarding attacks on smokers and, while having some sympathy with him, I feel he has shot himself in not one, but two, feet.

Thirty years ago I was rushed to hospital with excruciating chest pains. The next I knew I woke up hooked up to a heart monitor.

I will always remember the lady doctor's first words: "You must give up smoking."

I was a child of the Forties, brought up around smokers, so inevitably I smoked for 25 years or so.

I was in hospital 11 days, how much did that cost the NHS? I've never had another cigarette.

Fast forward 30 years and after going to hospital for CT scans, chest x-rays and all kinds of tests, again what cost to the NHS, I have been diagnosed with emphysema.

How? Because of all the smoking I did when I was younger.

Mr Grimshaw says he and 22 others were "huddled in a corner" and felt humiliated. That was your choice.

You say instead of all this bureaucracy money should be spent on the NHS, think of the irony of that, and that you would have smoking and non-smoking pubs, clubs and hotels.

Yes, that would work, wouldn't it!

Geoff Tasker, Park Road, Low Moor