Sir, – I feel I must support John Anderson of the Half Moon pub in Darlington, when he criticises Cancer Research and its January dryathlon campaign.

The challenge is to cut excessive drinking, not to recruit the moderate.

This kind of hammer-to-crack-a-nut philosophy that extends to extolling all people to give up alcohol for a month damages both small businesses, pubs and breweries and goes no way toward resolving the problem of excessive drinking.

The excessive drinker is not going to take a blind bit of notice of said campaign and they are the drinkers that will suffer illness through high consumption.

The moderate sensible drinker that sits up and takes notice and withdraws his custom, is in no danger of illness, cancer or otherwise from consuming the odd pint.

They are, however, the people the likes of the Half Moon depend upon for survival.

I would propose another campaign: "Stay Moderate and Stay Healthy" the acronym for which is "smash".

The members would have a pint or two and support their local in doing so, as Buddhist monks exhort "everything in moderation".

This way we will all survive to enjoyable old age and support our local pubs and breweries into the bargain.

As for Ms Gordon, marketing manager for Cancer Research's Dryathlon, her intentions are honourable indeed, but I am afraid she has missed the target audience completely, as we the healthy majority do not require to be patronised, our local pubs, however, certainly do.

Cheers.

RICHARD BAKER

The Front, Middleton One Row.