WE'VE become a lazy nation incapable of basic skills that most people had two or three generations ago.

DIY, cooking from scratch, decorating, basic electrics and plumbing, gardening, etc, are ‘foreign’ to many households, that now employ someone else to carry out these tasks.

But why?

During the 1960s, we generally became wealthier than we had been since before the Second World War and became more influenced by a lazier US lifestyle.

We used to accuse the Americans of only being capable of thinking short-term but now we are guilty of this – big time.

Huge financially-crippling business errors occur regularly, because we are incapable or unwilling of thinking things through.

Instead, the basis is greed, by earning brownie points at the expense of the next guy down the line who has to sort out the mess.

Who, for example decided that huge housing estates should be approved without adequately-sized gardens that would allow the occupier to be self-sufficient in fresh vegetables?

Much has been made of the necessity to produce greener, ‘carbon-neutral’ housing – but how do these qualify without the basic facility to grow your own food?

The lack of natural exercise people would get from gardening, plus a over-reliance on convenience foods, means many of us are now overweight and the first generation likely to die at a earlier age than our parents. Crazy!

MICK HEAVEY, Oxford Road, Old Marston, Oxford