Dave Cousins (August 16) either totally misread or intentionally perverted what I had written six days earlier in an opinion piece in this newspaper.

I most certainly did not refer to any “golden age” when it was “okay to use abusive language about immigrants”, nor did I “deride” any immigrants’ “contribution to the country”.

Very clearly, I wrote about immigrants describing themselves and addressing each other in a way that would be found objectionable or “non-PC” today, in a society that is considerably more uptight about such matters.

The whole point, the sole point, of my message was to describe the easy-going multicultural society in which my generation of English people grew up and went on to work, or to study. Sometimes this was on what we then called “the Continent”.

I also referred to the influx of migrants who were welcomed as making a contribution to British society. My argument was that my (pre-EU) generation had freedom of movement, of work, and of education, without even European frontiers. It was not, as is being claimed, a creation of the European Union.

I have a proven professional ability to write in a form of English language that (British) 15-year-olds can understand.

I am appalled that Cousins could have totally misunderstood my simple prose, or that – if he read it and understood it – he could have written a letter to this newspaper purposely turning what I wrote on itshead, inventing quite obvious racist implications.