I WAS born and brought up off Sharples Avenue over 55 years ago.

When I was a child, my father took my sister and me on many walks up and around Dunscar.

One day as we passed the War Memorial I asked him what the soldier meant. He explained what the memorial represented and how, less than 10 years ago, many young men from the area had given their lives so we could live in freedom.

As a young person, when I passed the memorial many times on my bike, I would reflect on the suffering and ultimate sacrifice those men had gone through for our sakes.

I subsequently explained what the memorial meant to my children.

Only last year, when I was taking my 10-year-old grandson from Belmont -- where he lives -- to Harwood, he asked me what the soldier was doing there in the middle of the road.

I explained a little about the two world wars, and told him how his great-grandfather on his father's side had escaped from Dunkirk and fought in the desert in the 5th Army for our freedom.

He had come home after being away for over five years a very sick man, who never properly recovered from his war.

If Stephen Fitton has his way, the War Memorial will be moved from its prominent position at the junction of two main roads into some siding.

How will future generations be able to learn what it means, and give thanks every time they pass it for the freedom they enjoy and for which those young men gave their all?

Surely their sacrifice should be honoured and remembered for all time and not sidetracked for Stephen Fitton's gain?

Eileen Rigby

Sapling Road,

Swinton,

Manchester

(one of which was still very recent in my childhood)