SIR - I cannot understand why so many people in latter years have failed with The Swan Hotel.

When I lived in London in 1980 I mentioned to a work colleague there that my parents were retiring to a place called Wotton-under-Edge, and he said 'Oh, where that wonderful hotel called The Swan is.' The restaurant, incidentally, had a excellent system whereby you could have a selection of hors d'eovres and puddings without a main course if you so wished, and the place was always buzzing.

With the vast increase in the leisure industry and the fact that Wotton is in an area surrounded by attractions of every sort, I find it extraordinary that no one can make a success of the hotel and restaurant now when they could in the days when the demand for such places was so much smaller.

Maggie Hughes, Bradley Road, Wotton-under-Edge