I WAS most interested to read the letter from Alan Laurie in The Advertiser, November 6.

We are keen gardeners and this year grew nine different varieties of tomatoes, most of which you won't see in the shops. These included an amazing Polish one that produces individual fruits weighing up to 400 grams yet which have a full flavour of real tomato.

Apart from professional merchants, who obviously have to go through a licensing procedure to import seeds from beyond the EU, it is wonderful that at least within the EU we can now swap seeds privately with overseas friends without the bureaucracy or straight prohibition of the days before the single market.

But as regards the free EU single-market aspect, I think Mr Laurie has got the countries a little muddled up. Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are indeed due to join us in the EU next year but there are no such plans for Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria or, I think, Hungary.

I couldn't agree more with his closing remark. It is infuriating to be subjects of one of only three EU countries (and much the biggest of the three) who still have to change currency when we travel to the rest of the EU.

I can only describe it as humiliating, after driving across all other EU borders unhindered as though those borders no longer existed, to have to go through immigration checks, along with other EU citizens, on leaving or returning to this backward country!

Ian Leslie,

Gravel Hill,

Ludlow.