SIR: After reading about the National Lottery sponsoring The Octagon with £1m plus, to an unworthy cause I was disgusted.

We can live without plays, but we need machines in hospitals. My late wife was a diabetic. She was taken to Hope Hospital because the facilities were not available at Bolton. So why can't Bolton Hospital have them.

If I won the lottery I would see to it.

Mr J T Parton, Third Avenue, Little Lever,

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