UNTIL a few months ago, I was a happy soul, positive in outlook and confident of a useful future for me and my family. Then the prime minister told me that if Britain leaves the European Union this country will go into catastrophic decline. I was a bit anxious about that but tried to look on the bright side and only had an occasional headache.

Then he sent me a booklet (which cost nine million pounds of tax payer's money) informing me that not only would Britain face a miserable and desolate future if we leave the EU but there would be mass unemployment and economic instability and trade with Europe would all but cease. It followed that my son and his wife would probably lose their jobs and maybe their home, see their savings dwindle and find little to buy in the shops as other European countries closed their trading doors to the British people. To make matters worse, Brexit would mean we could no longer benefit from the professional skills of hundreds of thousands more essential immigrants. The fact that we already have nearly two million unemployed workers of our own seems to have been lost in translation. Open borders and the ever increasing burden on our NHS, the benefits system, our schools and housing was not mentioned but the revelation that we would quickly run out of engineers, doctors and builders led me to believe that I was just too ignorant to understand what is going on in the world. By that time I was depressed and attending relaxation classes.

The worst was yet to come. This week Mr Cameron told me in a speech on TV that if we leave the EU then a third world war is all but imminent. I fainted on the spot and now suffer from awful nightmares about gangs of fanatical Brexit's hiding in the wardrobe.

I am an old lady. I lived through the Second World War in a city regular bombed by the Germans, I have experienced the terror, bloodshed and devastation of war; Mr Cameron has not yet. He presumes to threaten me casually and arrogantly with something he has only ever seen in newsreels. To suggest that war is a probable outcome if we exit the EU is cruel, preposterous and totally irresponsible. He is using base and unscrupulous scare tactics by making unsubstantiated claims of disaster, poverty, deprivation and even a third world war to try to prove political point. He is putting the fear of God into people who cannot know what will happen if we stay or get out. Ruling by fear is a ruthless and dishonourable method of manipulating the masses. Shame on you Mr Cameron!

I add that I have not taken to drink or lost my marbles despite the prime minister's best efforts to undermine my confidence in myself and my country. Unlike him I am one of the Bulldog breed and proud of it. You can't put the wind up my breeches mister or make me feel inadequate, inferior or unable to face the future without the many repressive controls and restrictions imposed on me by foreign people in a foreign place, the place they call the European Union. I am the inheritor of a home land my ancestors built, defended, fought and died for and I want to be governed by a parliament that shares and respects that inheritance and who have faith in our people, our heritage, our abilities and our potential.

If you don't have the wisdom or the courage to steer us through uncertain waters Mr Cameron then let go the helm and hand it to someone who does.

JOYCE CLARE

Belmont

Hereford