for this SIR: Recently we have been given much opinionated comment about homosexuality. Once again Cllr Peter Johnston (Points of view, April 27) is in the thick of it, seeing himself as the champion of these people, who I hasten to say should be pitied, not pilloried. Having said that, for most of my life 'coming out' was something debutantes did in the social season. The topic has always been taboo and the practice indefensible.

No doubt it is a burgeoning phenomenon, as is drug abuse, road rage, post-traumatic stress syndrome, counselling etc etc. In his protracted discourse, as if to press home his points, Peter tells us the Dutch are a 'kind and tolerant people'. The Japanese thought so in early 1942, when they capitulated so quickly in Java. Their general said his task would have been more difficult if the Dutch women had been defending the colony.

My friend Peter Elphick, the military historian, tells me the 'kindly' Dutch Air Force used to practice target shooting at Indonesian fishing boats. Pages 412 and 413 in his last book Far Eastern File, The Intelligence War in the Far East 1930-1945 make interesting reading, and say it all. In 1944, a Dutch Commando Unit, the Korps Insulinde, was set up for raids in Northern Sumatra. It failed because the Sumatrans wanted it to, as did a later special operations executive mission to set up a resistance organisation. This situation was unique in the whole of South East Asia. The bottom line is the Indonesians preferred the Japanese to the 'kindly tolerant Dutch'.

Now I know the meaning of being 'between a rock and a hard place'. I still stand by my dictum: good and bad are everywhere. Happily the good easily outweigh the bad even in Amsterdam.

Mr T T Mellows

Hughes Avenue

Horwich

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.