Letter to the editor: I would like to ask anyone who is celebrating Christmas (and anyone who is not) to eat a vegetarian meal for a kind change. Supermarkets offer tasty “fake meat” alternatives to make it easier to eat a Christmas meal with family members eating turkey.

Having attended many religious celebrations at Christmas, I do wonder how those people praying for a more compassionate world go home to eat the body of a bird that is likely to have had a miserable life and a violent death.

The turkey is descended from a wild bird. Most now spend their lives in intensive farms. At the slaughterhouse they are hung by their feet and dropped into an electrified water bath to stun them before their throats are cut.

Please use Christmas as an opportunity to remove your support for such behaviour towards animals.

Robert Roach, Address supplied