May I add something to Charles Goode's insight into the gifted musicianship of astronomer Sir Patrick Moore (Letters, June 14).

Sir Patrick also has a gift (a genius?) for composing music and used to play the xylophone with professional panache before his recent health problems made it impossible to continue.

For example, there is the CD Moore Music (1999) with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Derek Carden, which prompted The Stage to write: "He writes marches of which Sousa would have been proud and waltzes which one of the Strausses might have laid claim to".

A man of many parts indeed.

-Richard W. Symonds, Ifield