SIR - I find it rather sad, while driving around, to see so many pubs closed and boarded up, a thing unheard of in former years.

It was a quote by the English poet and author Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) who said: "When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves for you have lost the last of England."

Did he know something we didn't?

R J McCabe, Leyton Terrace, Idle