Letter: Musical climaxes

Sir: So you mean that Jilly Cooper is so inexperienced as never to have bonked on a glockenspiel? ("Percussionists do it standing up", 16 January.) By heck, but I remember when in the old days a married couple of my acquaintance were almost deafened while bonking inside one of the timpani during a performance at the Festival Hall of Nielsen's Second Symphony. Elsewhere, a year or so later, seven of us made a hell of a mess of a set of cymbals; I think the music was Beethoven, but I honestly cannot remember.

PAUL BARNETT

Exeter, Devon