Keith Melville’s letter (Beacon, April 8) had me thinking about the reading matter we lucid lefties had back in the day.

A popular one we got was The little Red Hen (nice colour that), which, should any righty ranters out there be in any doubt, we deep-thinking lefties also don’t have much time for those who don’t pull their weight.

But it gets better, we also used to get weekly visits from a representative of the Salvation Army.

One story, in particular, always stayed with me, about a little girl walking to school who found a coin lying on the footpath.

She couldn’t believe her luck, so decided there and then to keep an eye out for more whenever she was out walking.

The upshot being that she missed out on all the beauty of the world around her.

Of course that was primary school; at college we were taught and discussed George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Luckily for us, the Art of the Deal by that towering right-wing intellectual hadn’t been written yet.