From Mr C. L. Flint, MRPharmS
SIR,-I paraphrase: All pharmacists are equal (when paying their full retention fee), except some who are more equal than others (when sitting on the Council as proprietor, not company, pharmacists), for they, to start with in this year 2000, shall "inherit" £160 a day with which to reimburse their locum's fee (PJ, June 17, p906).
What of "the others"? I think of hospital and industrial colleagues. As one of the latter, now retired, I could never have been elevated to such a lofty position. Had I aspired to, and been elected to this high office, I believe my time off would have come out of my company annual holiday entitlement - if, that is, my company would have released me. And any work left undone through my absence from my desk would have been corrected by much unpaid overtime working undertaken by myself.
I am mindful of another saying for those altruistic, politically motivated, proprietor community pharmacist colleagues: if the Council "kitchen" temperature is now proving too hot, then I suggest they return to the dispensary "cauldron".
A final reminder to all, whatever their calling: there is no such thing as a "free lunch", if indeed, in this day and age, dispensary "beavers" are allowed such a luxury in their long working day. The path of life is strewn with inequities. All of my community activities have been financially unrewarding.
Les Flint Lasham, Hampshire