confidence' 'Gift of hope and Parents recall how Sure Start was a vital lifeline for them

Baby massage classes, breastfeeding support, early intervention for children with special needs and advice on hair clips for nervous dads were just some of the multiple benefits of Sure Start, according to parents who used the service.

- Sally Weale

"My Sure Start centre had wings and a halo," was how one grateful parent puts it. "I would have been lost to postnatal depression if it wasn't for our local centre," says another. "Sure Start steadied me, held me, kept me from being lonely," adds another parent.

"It was good for me, my family and the community." After calls this week from senior Labour figures for Keir Starmer to put a new Sure Start-style programme at the heart of his election manifesto, readers have contacted the Guardian about their own experiences of Sure Start.

It made them better parents and gave their children a better chance in life, they say, and they all express regret about its demise, including Matthew Pearce, a 52-year-old software developer from Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire.

"My son Sammy was born in 2008," he says. "He has a genetic disorder. We didn't know what was going on at the time.

He was not moving around very much. My mother took him to a Sure Start and because of that early intervention and that early access to support, it pushed us into the system much earlier.