THOUGH you featured our family (LET, July 29) as our daughter, Alice, has a rare genetic condition called I-Cells Disease -- which is incurable and Alice is unlikely to live longer than three or four years -- sadly, nobody contacted us about our fundraising appeal.

However, could I urge readers to take part in the forthcoming Jeans for Genes Day on October 9?

When Alice was diagnosed with I-Cells Disease earlier this year, doctors at Booth Hall Children's Hospital in Manchester had previously never heard of this illness as it is so rare.

The hospital put us in touch with the Society for Mucopolysaccharide Diseases, which knew all about the disease. I don't know what we would have done without them. They phone or visit us every month, not only to see how Alice is but to see how the rest of the family is coping. They put us in touch with others who have the same or similar diseases in the family.

They publish a monthly magazine with helpful information and they put us in contact with the best financial and health care appropriate for Alice.

Above all, they are our friends and because they have experienced -- usually at first hand -- looking after a child with a genetic condition, they know how we feel.

That is why these charities are important and should be treated as such. I urge readers to put £1 in a box on October 9 and, for more information on the Jeans for Gene Appeal, to ring 0800-980-4800.

C THORPE (Miss), Dukes Brow, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.