GANGS of underage drinkers are making life a misery for elderly residents in Thicketford House. So much so that the council is considering erecting a security fence around the home to keep the louts at bay.

Fine! But this does nothing towards tackling the problem of underage drinking, a problem not only in Tonge Moor, but throughout the borough.

Maybe the solution would be to remove the prime source of the problem -- the cheap booze outlets. Booze is too easily available to underage drinkers from these outlets, and, try as they may, owners seem unable to do much about it.

Cheap booze is available to legal drinkers at most supermarkets, so is there any real need for these outlets in areas notorious for underage drinking?

Tonge Moor councillor Frank White blames parents. "Parents in the vicinity of the home should show a greater degree of responsibility as to where their children are and what they are doing," he says.

Well, I'm sick and tired of people saying parents are to blame. Right, so what, I agree! But what next?

Parents who allow their children to get drunk on the streets, or anywhere else, couldn't give a fig about where their children are, or what they are up to. They certainly couldn't give a fig about the disruption they cause other people. Today's yobs are, as I have said many times, second, or even third generation yobs. It runs in the family.

If you must put the blame somewhere, then blame our education system, which fails to give many youngsters the knowledge they need to become decent adults. We have let these people down -- the yobs and their yob parents -- and now we are paying the price.

Perhaps magistrates should be given the authority to issue sentences of six, 12 or 24 months in the Army, instead of a slap on the wrist. There they would make up for all the discipline they had missed out on at school.

Brian Derbyshire

Ribchester Grove

Bolton