MR McQueen (Letters, December 16) is right to condemn vandalism but wrong to condemn, by implication, all student protesters and the cause for which they protest when he writes

' . . . they want everything for nothing straightaway'.

Those who fought fascism in world war two, and for whom I have the profoundest respect, came home to found a country fit for themselves and for their children, hence the legacy of a fine education system open to all, irrespective of background and income.

Excessive university tuition fees are to my mind a betrayal of this ideal and I absolutely support the students' legitimate protest. £9,000 a year may be nothing to those whose millionaire parents can afford to send them to Eton or Harrow, but to most ordinary families it is a huge amount.

I may add that the spectacle of mounted policemen charging a crowd of young people is one I find appalling. These youngsters (who incidentally will shortly be paying Mr McQueen's naval pension through their taxes) are the future of this nation. This is absolutely not the way to treat them.

Dorothy Kirk

Calstock Road

Gunnislake

I WOULD like to offer a contrary view to your correspondent, concerning student protests, using the same examples.

I graduated over 40 years ago, but if the current rules had applied then, I could not have afforded to go to university. My qualifications enabled me to gain various managerial roles in the private sector; I paid a lot of tax, which helped pay for the salary of your previous correspondents' chosen career in the navy.

No. I am not a pacifist. I do not possess sufficient moral courage. But I do sympathise with the students' concerns about the justification for some of the recent wars, as well as the billions lost by our military leaders through either monumental stupidity or worse, as revealed all last week in the other Times.

Yes, I agree that some students are hooligans, but some members of the police are a disgrace to their uniform, and some of the royal family are hardly a credit to the nation.

Your correspondent also mentioned Churchill. It is interesting to note that it was the royal family who tried very hard to block Churchill's appointment as wartime prime minister.

Finally, I would suggest that we all show a little more tolerance to the present generation of students; after all, they are the ones who will be paying my state pension and the considerably larger armed forces pensions.

Frank Woodcock

Tavistock