I HAVE always thought that the present generation enjoy scientific advances which make life much easier than in the swinging sixties and the problem is that it wants every new thing right away. The same applies to communications and the like.

One young person complained that he could not afford a starter home at the ripe old age of 21 and some electioneers agree that this is so wrong!

In the mid-sixties you only got the house you could afford to rent or buy. The latter case usually only applied if parental finances assisted you. You saved for all your needs and eventual marriage. Your stag or hen party was a night out with mates at a bar or restaurant, then a dancehall. Many items such as furnishings were bought on higher purchase deals.

Now it seems that in order to all get a house - with room for future family expansion – after a pre-wedding event lasting at least a weekend in Europe or further away, yet still enjoying a daily lifestyle well above the one enjoyed by my generation, our current sub-30-year-olds want to cap or even reduce our long and well-earned pensions.

The lifestyle of our sub-thirties is amazing and expensive. Haircuts that require weekly trims or shaves, body decoration once enjoyed only by jungle tribes, sandwiches which could be made at home, alcoholic drinks – especially cocktails – and overseas travel, all of which come at a cost which I do not wish to cover, so hands off our pensions.

Bryce Drummond,

2 South Hamilton Place, Kilmarnock.