I am appalled that reporters should have needed to know, first, how it came about that Sir John Major contributed to Exmouth Cricket Club s appeal for a mower, second, how much he contributed, and third, why they asked questions of his secretary when he was on holiday.

I am appalled that reporters should have needed to know, first, how it came about that Sir John Major contributed to Exmouth Cricket Club's appeal for a mower, second, how much he contributed, and third, why they asked questions of his secretary when he was on holiday. All this is of no consequence and is an invasion of his privacy. When Sir John wrote to me with his kind donation, over and above that he went out of his way to offer Exmouth CC two items of fundamental advice.Have you, he asked, contacted your players for funds because it is they who use the playing area; and also, presumably, you have sought help from your own members themselves.As far as I am aware, the players were not contacted. Nor, more amazingly, was the membership. I am a member and received no notification about the offer of a mower or a request to help fund it. I simply cannot understand this and that was why I put this question at our recent annual meeting. Here we have a former prime minister, no less, querying the obvious to us and yet so essential a step was never taken. It was partly because of this lack of action that I became determined to try to do something about it myself.Exmouth Cricket Club are, of course, extremely grateful to all people who responded to our need, both great and small. As Tesco would say, every little helped. To put the record straight, the English Cricket Board decided they could not in the end afford to let us have a new mower; instead we are grateful to have a secondhand one which we are sure will more than serve its purpose.I wonder if the media will apologise to Exmouth CC's secretary for their intrusiveness, let alone to Sir John Major. Anthony Robinson,222 Withycombe Village Road,Exmouth.