Letter: Hasty applause before the last train departs

Sir: Peter Sitch (letters, 3 August) clearly thinks that concert-goers should be pinioned to their seats until the performers have milked the audience for the last hand clap. He writes from SW18. If he lived in the provinces and had a last train to catch, he might take a different view.

Someone living in a village in Leicestershire has to make a 200- mile round trip to attend a concert or an opera or a ballet or a play in London. If the performance ends promptly, he can hope to catch the last train home from a station on the far side of town, arriving in the early hours of the morning. If it over-runs and he stays for encores, he may have to wait on a platform until the milk train next day.

I feel I have done all that can reasonably be asked if I pay the price of a ticket and sit quietly throughout the advertised programme. I do not think it should be a condition of admission that I stay until the last enthusiast has exhausted his enthusiasm.

Yours faithfully,

CLIVE DEWEY

Burton Overy, Leicestershire

3 August