Ref. 28636-13A MOTHER whose son died of meningitis is warning businesses in Swindon not to respond to a chain letter that asks for compliment slips to be sent to a boy dying of cancer.

The letter is the latest incarnation of a hoax started over a decade ago.

June Davies, office manager at Ferndale Aerials in Ferndale Road, opened the letter and was so touched when she read of little John Craggs's terminal cancer that she started calling friends and family to amass the slips it requested. These would get him into the Guinness Book of Records as collecting the largest number of compliments slips.

She her son Paul, 10, died in1981 and her first thought when she got the letter was to do what she could to help.

"It really plucked at my heart strings," she said. "It was very upsetting. When I read it I was quite choked up.

"I was thinking of his poor mother that she would have to go through what I went through."

But when a friend suggested the story might not be true she contacted the Advertiser for help. Our research proved she was right to be suspicious.

The seven-year-old John Craggs the letter refers to does not exist, neither does his address.

Now, after learning that it is nothing more than a nasty practical joke, all Mrs Davies, 61, feels is anger and disgust.

"I just wish someone could find the people who started it. What a dreadful thing to do, to use the idea of a dying child. How can someone be so sick as to do this?

"I can't be the only mother in the country who has been upset by this. It is very hurtful."

The letter was sent by the last link in the chain, Wootton Bassett property management and letting company Butfield Breach after they were contacted by Ridgeway estate agents in Marlborough.

But they aren't the only people to be taken in.

The hoax started in the mid 1980s in the wake of a genuine appeal by a young boy called Craig Shergold, who was suffering from cancer, appealed for help in getting into the record books. The request went around the world and Craig got his wish.

But after the appeal ended mutated chain letters started appearing. Craig's name and his home address began to change subtly.

A recent variation was John Craig of Selby Road in Carshalton. The new mutation, John Craggs, of Selby Road, Charlton, Surrey, has already hoodwinked unsuspecting companies as far apart as Leeds and Brighton.

When told of the hoax Paul Vitti, a director at Butfield Breach said: "We abhor this practise that people employ to gain the sympathies of businesses in order to create hoaxes and cause havoc.

"We certainly don't endorse this sort of behaviour and we would advise other companies to beware and make sure their staff are aware of the danger."

Royal Mail spokesman Adrian Booth advised anyone receiving the letter to bin it immediately.

He said letters that could not be delivered, were ultimately destroyed.

"It is a totally wasted effort by people who are trying to help a sick child," he added.

Tina Clarke