AS my three score years and 10 fast approach I increasingly look back at these seven decades. My thoughts are in the main highlighted by the political events that shaped this country and beyond: the Cold War years, the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Thatcher years, Iraq, Islamic State, Donald Trump, Brexit.

Each has been at the forefront of the news agenda. And yet there is one issue that lies heavy with me day in, day out. How as a human race have we developed to the point that, in countless clothing factories in Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, hundreds of garment workers beaver away in poor conditions making jeans for Western society and, in separate departments, these jeans are torn, faded, shredded and advertised as distressed.

These poor garment workers are distressed; the jeans, no.

Alex Dickson,

Inverkirkaig, Lochinver,

Sutherland.