=A COUPLE of years ago, the week before Christmas, I spent several hours on the platform of a bus station in Murcia, Spain, waiting for a connection which was to arrive hours late.

It was freezing cold, and three o'clock in the morning.

I was fearful, having been approached by aggressive characters asking for money, so I had put my rucksack in a security locker, forgetting to take out extra clothing, but using up the last of my loose change.

I kept warm by pacing up and down the platform, and going into the gents' toilet to use the warm air dryer.

I don't think I have ever been so cold and tired in my whole life.

Then three men arrived on the station, who, I found out later, were Arabs from Africa.

They kept warm by wrapping themselves in large blankets.

One of them gestured to me, handed me a blanket, and offered me a space on the bench beside him.

We got chatting, both of us using a mixture of Spanish and French, mainly on the wonderful sights I had seen in Andalucia -- a mixture of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian cultures.

Our respective skin colours, religions and cultural backgrounds had not prevented a complete stranger from making a simple gesture of kindness towards his brother.

In contrast, recently on the front page of a paper and saw a picture of a beautiful eight-month-old baby called Joshua.

My first instinct as a grandad, (and I am sure it was that of many a childless couple) was a desire to give him a big hug, take him home, and care for him.

As the article suggested, my "hardest of grown-up hearts" melted.

Sadly, in their infinite wisdom, the 'experts' at Salford Council prefer that Joshua remain unadopted on the grounds that certain prospective parents are deemed unsuitable.

The council's criteria are, as the article further infers, that people such as I have the wrong colour of skin, eat the wrong food, wear the wrong clothes, speak the wrong language, pray to the wrong God, and, forgive me, that I am of British origin.

In short, I am not -- and I quote -- "from a compatible ethnic background".

So, that is now the prerequisite for giving an eight-month-old baby the loving care he needs?

I was raised as a Christian, but I thank Allah that those Arabs did not share the same crackpot mentality as Salford Council

William Kelly

Darley Street

Farnworth