Sid Rawle

David McKittrick's obituary of Sid Rawle (1 November) omits a mention of Rawle's appearance in Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's film Winstanley (1976), writes John Smurthwaite. The film concerns the proto-communist experiment of the Diggers in the aftermath of the English Civil War. Rawle and his friends were brought in to play the anarchic gang of Ranters who erupt into the Diggers' commune.

Very little was needed in the way of acting; Rawle told Brownlow that he and his friends could be Ranters "without even trying". The Diggers were played by actors (albeit amateurs), whereas Rawle and his group were the genuine article; the disruption they caused was all too real, and the film all the better for it.

I was very interested to read the obituary on Sid Rawle, who I met at a party at LSE circa 1970, writes John James. The word that struck me as conspicuous by its absence was "Diggers" – Rawle led (though no doubt he'd have taken issue with the concept of leadership) a hippy collective called the Diggers, or sometimes the Hyde Park Diggers I mentioned his death to a friend who was at that party and somehow knew Sid Rawle, and he immediately said, "Oh, the Diggers guy".