AS one of the steadily increasing band of over-65s who are continuing to work (albeit in my case, on a part-time basis) your front page headline ("Half of Scots will work beyond 65", The Herald, October 27) set me thinking.

One of the minor pleasures of working into senesence is that, after one's 65th birthday, employee NI contributions are no longer deducted from salary. However, I wonder how long it will be before a Chancellor of the Exchequer, always on the lookout for new sources of revenue to feed the government's voracious demand for money, decides to restore this impost.

Christopher W Ide,

25 Riverside Road, Waterfoot, East Renfrewshire.

I MUST admit I was shocked to read in your columns that David Dimbleby is celebrating his 79th birthday (On This Day, The Herald, October 28). Surely it’s an absolute disgrace and a tragedy that an individual 14 years past his retirement age has to continue working part-time in the evenings just to keep body and soul together? Then again it appears to be Government policy that age is no barrier to an individual being productive, self-supporting and not a drain on the public purse.

I for one don’t begrudge him some of my TV licence money. After al l, it comes out of my state pension, it’s not as if I have to earn it. Perhaps we could organise a crowd-funding site to make life easier for him rather than him having to use his free bus-pass to criss-cross the country to appear on Question Time. It would release the chairman’s role to be taken by a younger individual, perhaps even a woman. It just goes to show that an Eton education and membership of the Bullingdon Club is no guarantee for an easy life and demonstrates the folly of burning £50 notes at its initiation ceremony. Breaks your heart to see it. Poor old soul.

David J Crawford,

85 Whittingehame Court,

1300 Great Western Road, Glasgow.