I would like to publicly thank Celia Barlow and Robert Massey for the wonderful help they gave me with my income tax problems.

Since retiring five years ago, my wife and I have tried in vain to make sense of the system. The situation had become a nightmare of letters and phonecalls ignored by the tax office we were dealing with.

In desperation, we turned to Celia. A phone call to her surgery put us in touch with her Man Friday, as I call him, Robert Massey.

He was so kind and understanding and arranged an appointment at Celia's surgery at Portslade town hall. It was the day of my 70th birthday.

Within two weeks a letter from Celia arrived and in January of this year we received a phone call from Robert telling us Celia had spoken on our behalf. The case had been handed to a senior tax official who was dealing with the matter and the Inland Revenue would be getting in touch soon.

That happened the very next day and we have since received a tax rebate and compensation.

All our affairs are now in order.

I fully believe it was down to Celia Barlow and Robert Massey. Without their intervention and help in this matter nothing would have happened.

So I would like to say a big thank you to Celia and her office. If anyone out there has a like problem, try one of their surgeries. You will be talking to people who care and are excellent listeners.

-Gordon Smith, Hove