CHRIS Watkin of UKIP in last week’s Guardian speaks a lot of sense.

Of course, everything that anyone says or offers is only words until proved to have substance, and that seems more true than ever these days.

However, I wish UKIP well, and would like to see them have a chance to prove themselves.

With regard to the plight of once-famous East Coast fishing towns: I grew up midway between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, whose existences relied on fishing throughout the 1920s and 30s. Our harbours were filled with trawlers in their hundreds at this time of year, which included a huge number of Scottish vessels as well.

The collapse of the fishing industry has been an insurmountable blow to the livelihoods of thousands all along the East Coast of Britain.

My own father was a deck hand on a trawler when he first left school, before serving in the Royal Navy at Jutland and later Gallipoli. The EU and its demands never did us any favours.

Peter Friston Leftwich