SIR: Recently, I planted a lilac bush and some trailing lobelia in a lovely tub outside my flat. The tub was sentimental and some thief took it. I was housebound most of last summer, apart from visiting hospital every day, with a very badly broken ankle.

This year I am getting more mobile, so I decided to make my garden nice with a friend's help.

I hope the person who took my tub gets pleasure from my flowers, although that person is sick. My neighbours have suffered the same. All their daffodils have been pulled out, and thrown away. We are all pensioners and trying to make our gardens nice. One year my gnomes were taken, like Mavies and Derek (Coronation Street). Well I know I live in a "sick society". The poor cats near here, are treated cruelly at the park by young boys. I saw them.

Jean Haslam, Fordham Grove, Bolton.

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