I READ with interest Mrs Condon’s very relevant question about the strange disappearance of the duck population on the river in Marlborough. (June 9).

I have lived in this town for 35 years and brought up my three daughters here.

As a young family, we spent many happy hours in Coopers Meadow feeding the hundreds of ducks that lived there, watching with joy proud ducks parading their newly hatched young.

I, of course, with many others, have noticed the very upsetting decline in their numbers on the Marlborough river over the last six to eight years. There is hardly a new duck family in sight.

Last Saturday I spent a delightful day in Oxford at a wedding reception held in a riverside establishment.

Far from the demise of the duck that this town is suffering, the ducks were there in their hundreds. I counted at least 16 newly hatched duck families with their proud mothers.

The children at the wedding spent almost all of their time feeding the ducks and their offspring.

So what has happened to our duck population that is now almost non-existent? Obviously something has gone wrong with the part of the river in our town.

I think it is time that a proper investigation is carried out to find out what is going wrong on our river that is keeping the ducks away.

MARIAN HANNAFORD- DOBSON Cross Lane Marlborough