I WOULD like to support the views of J L Young (Bolton Evening News, December 30) as I feel that Christmas is meaningless to many people today, especially children.

A minister friend of mine, when he goes into a local primary school to give an RE lesson, used to say that Asian children know more about Christmas than many white Englishchildren.

At one time quite a lot of parents used to send their children to Sunday School and there some of them came to faith in Christ. But, even those that didn't, left with the latent morality which respected authority and personal property.

Officially every school is supposed to start the day with religious worship, but in this day and age a lot that passes for religious worship is a complete farce. Those RE teachers who take their job seriously and implant the moral code of the Christian religion and indeed those of the ethnic minority religions are to be commended. Muslims and Hindus do have a strong moral code even if they do not embrace the Christian faith.

However, I am one who believes in the supremacy of the Christian faith centred in what happened on the Cross of Calvary and the empty tomb an Easter morning, and feel that the only hope for this country is a return of faith in Christ from which will come a moral and spiritual revival when much of our social crime such as mugging, smashing telephone kiosks and bus shelters and stoning public transport will cease.

Of course, there will always be the hardened criminals as long as the devil is active in this world, but we shall recover much of the spirit of community and national morality which was so present in the early years of the 20th century.

We shall also have the Christ child taking his rightful place in the Christmas season.

Philip H Hayworth,

Mornington Road,

Bolton.