I must reply to the appalling letters from Helen Gaen, Edith Parsons and others, criticising teachers for going on strike.

It is worth pointing out that teachers have all our children's future in their hearts.

Secondly, I don't see how, when you take action to enhance a "living" wage, your correspondents slam the very people who are aggrieved.

Teachers don't want to go on strike, but they do want and surely deserve, at the very least, a rise that matches inflation, something they have not received for several years.

Look at the large class sizes and the number of children being taught by helpers.

Why don't people attack the perpetrators of these 'crimes' against working people?

These so-called politicians attack everyone, including the police, prison officers, civil servants and pensioners.

People only strike as a last resort and history can thank people in the past - Levellers, Suffragettes, Chartists - for giving us the reasonable amount of freedom and working conditions we enjoy today.

They are being eroded almost daily.

We want highly qualified, committed teachers who are motivated, not undermined!

Mind you, left to people like the "teacher bashers" in your letters page, my children would still be going up chimneys!

Shame on them!

Are they ex-teachers?

TIM SIRET Evans Road Eynsham