SIR – Now enjoying the fruits of retirement, I have time to reminisce on my workings years.

Once, at a low ebb, I joined the ‘direct selling’ commission-only brigade.

A canvasser would call, then the salesmen would follow up. Thankfully, this practice is dying out, and it has been on Watchdog lately.

The salesman usually has to provide his own car and pay all his own fuel costs. A friend of mine emptied his own bank account by the time he got the hang of it and made a sale.

Another compatriot was based in Bradford. They sent him to Preston, and told him to phone after that appointment. Then he had to drive to North Wales.

He didn’t make a sale at either place, so phoned back to head office. They told him they’d got him a fresh appointment at Hull for 7.30 that evening.

“Yes, and have you a helicopter as well?” he replied.

That’s the last the company heard from him.

Tom Appleton, Barley Fields Road, Wetherby