SIR — Saints preserve us! After all the moans about Minehead, we now have a letter from a Mrs Crocker in Ilminster (Your Letters December 7) having a good rant about the residents and those who run the town, who she cheekily calls "the wrong stuffy people"! We won't take all that lying down!

After Ilminster, Minehead would seem like the great metropolis. I lived in Ilminster for a short while, and found it very boring, the most exciting place in town was the vet's surgery.

Half the shops even closed for lunch! We don't do that in Minehead.

Does this lady hope we'll stop the earth rotating for a moment so that Minehead and its inhabitants can fall off into the ether and she won't ever need to come here again? Well, we're far too spirited for that.

Your correspondent mentions Mr Clyde-Smith and his advert (November 23). He certainly doesn't sound very stuffy – he seems to be extremely "get up and go".

The many residents I know from eight to 80 are full of fizz. Some of us are nearly blue in the face listing in our letters the masses of activities one can do in Minehead, mostly organised and enjoyed by interesting and active people who live and work here and are surely very happy to welcome visitors along too.

This leads us again to the few grumbling tourists who did not find the facilities they were looking for here but magically found them in other resorts visited.

Could they perhaps be more constructive and tell us what it is they came here expecting to do? Ski-ing? The town and its surrounds just about cover everything else.

Mrs Crocker, you must read again the supportive letters that have been printed. Hopefully you will see where you are really so wrong about Minehead and its community.

You then say Minehead is a wonderful town. Yes! It is because of the people living and working here who care and strive to make it so.

Another correct point you make - the mindset. Some of us must be thinking very hard (tongue in cheek of course!) where we can now buzz you off to . . . but I'm sure you have a good sense of humour!

Ros Robinson,

Bratton Lane,

Minehead.