I wonder if fellow quintagenarian David Rogers (Letters, April 18) also remembers Colonel Bagshot's Rock Garden on Eel Pie Island (near Hampton Court), a venue so seedy it even merited a few lines in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous.

The legendary blues outfit The Groundhogs played there and were still on the nickel-and-dime circuit quite recently when they gigged opposite the late Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant's former mansion in Hellingly.

David might recall in the late Sixties and early Seventies audiences were maddeningly reserved. I was at Cream's final performance in 1968 and the oft-shown footage focuses on one furious headshaker, those around him looking comatose.

Out of shot, up on a balcony, I did succeed in livening things up in my immediate area by "idiot dancing" - these days it hurts.

Rather like schoolteachers, I've generally regarded rockers from my youth as being really ancient (if not dead) but Andy Fraser of Free, who I watched doing a great set at the last Isle of Wight festival, is still a youngster in his 40s.

-William Fraser, Summerheath Road, Hailsham