It is interesting to see members of the Cabinet are being encouraged to take one day off work a year.

This is in order to give a day to the community in the form of some service to a charitable organisation. The range of offers does not seem to be very large, or even very imaginative, in its scope if the papers are to be believed.

Several of the Ministers are going for help in the classroom, help with reading, and David Blunkett offering his presence on the football terraces to deal with racist problems (sounds more like an average Saturday afternoon out to me!)

But Mr Blair does not intend to be alone in his efforts. He has issued a call to the many active retired people to get behind this initiative and offer their services to help their community.

I have news for Mr Blair. Pay a visit to Brighton and Hove on any day of the week at any time of the year and you will find the glue which sticks this community together consists almost entirely of older retired people, many of whom give not just a day a year but a day a week and in many cases more than one day a week.

Look around at the many charity shops, go with one of the people who deliver Meals on Wheels, get yourself a refreshing cup of tea in the over- crowded casualty department at the Sussex County Hospital and you will see just how many of the Third Age are very actively engaged in charity work in a big way.

One of the pieces of advice which is often offered by "agony aunts" to people who write in to say they have moved to a new town and are lonely and how can they make contacts, is to join in some charitable endeavour so they can meet a good cross section of people.

Certainly in Brighton and Hove, where there is a large number of retired people, the uptake of charitable work is huge. It is hard to reckon up what the costs would be if all the volunteers had to be paid the minimum wage. The economy would simply drown.

Add to the numbers who work in the community, the carers who work in the homes of the housebound, many for love not money, and you are looking at a fair- sized army.

It is difficult for the younger generation to give much time to such voluntary work because in many cases they need paid work. But even they contribute by way of helping out with the youth organisations such as the Guides and Scouts and other similar groups of young people.

There is an enormous group of people out there, Mr Blair, who are not drawing enormous salaries, whose pensions are beIng eroded, whose petrol for their volunteer driving is costing more and more and whose health may be inadvertently damaged by having to give up their heavily-taxed private health schemes.

It might not be a good idea to get too excited over one day a year given to cosy volunteering. The Grey Army might get the wrong idea and

go AWOL. Then see how far a day a year goes!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.