In response to the rant by Trevor Pateman (Letters, December 9) I suggest he spends one month working as a local government officer.

I write as a retired local government officer who had to retire ten years early as a result of ill health.

At one stage, the stress was so great I was signed off work with near-fatal blood pressure.

During my years with the council I have seen mental and physical breakdowns through continuous exposure to aggressive and abusive members of the public, with an ever-shrinking workforce expected to do "that bit extra" and always undervalued by the people they serve.

-ME Stroud, Brighton