Self-serve is no service at all

“Machinery is rendering shopping into a soulless, isolating experience, but at last one supermarket is bucking the trend,” says Yvonne Roberts (Comment, last week), but it’s not just loneliness that many of us suffer. At my last visit to a supermarket there was a long queue at the only staffed till while the bank of self-serve checkouts stood empty. We oldies are voting with our feet! Shopping for many of us is challenging enough with arthritic hands, painful backs and low energy levels, but to then serve yourself and pack it all away is asking too much. Well done to Booths for bucking the trend. Can we have one in Ramsbottom, please? Bob Dawson Greenmount, Greater Manchester