HOW I agreed with Paul Duncan (ViewPoints, April 11) about people on benefits bemoaning the cuts.

When I had my son in 1969 we lived in an old cottage with only a cold tap in an outhouse and until my plumber brother-in-law put in a hot tank, by which time the baby was six-months old, I washed nappies in a bucket on the cooker.

We didn’t automatically get a council house because we had children and, until my son was seven, we didn’t get child allowance for the first child, only any subsequent children.

We also got no help for nursery fees or working tax credits if we were on low pay.

I worked most of my married life but couldn’t follow the career path I would have liked, and fitted it in with my husband’s hours and school times and holidays.

Today they seem to want ‘everything now’ but don’t make the effort to help themselves and expect it as a right.

Some families shown using food banks seem to have large flat screen TVs, computers, jewellery, hairdos, etc – all things we considered luxuries, to be bought only when we had paid our bills and fed the family.

HELEN MARSHALL, Lincoln Place, Thame