I trust that you will afford me the space to respond to the unsigned letter in last week's paper headed "Get a babysitter."

I totally agree with your correspondent's comments about the excellent performance of the Mikado by MASK on that Friday evening. We thought it one of the best yet.

However, I wish to set the rest of the record straight and try to correct the impression that many people will have formed.

Alice, who is six had a ticket for her seat, but although we arrived at 7pm there were no seats left on the front row.

The best we could achieve was about the fourth row from the front.

Unfortunately, from this position she could not see past the people in front of us and so I was forced to have her on my knee.

She certainly did wriggle, as your correspondent forecast, but most of her questions were to identify the main characters as they appeared.

If this marred your correspondent's enjoyment of the show then I am sorry.

However, it does seem perverse to sit directly behind me, with a child on my lap especially as I am well over 6ft tall instead of choosing from the many empty seats remaining at that time.

There was no need to sit anywhere near me, let alone directly behind.

During the interval your correspondent complained to me and so, to rectify the situation, Alice sat on the floor beside me in the centre aisle.

She remained there for the entire second act and behaved impeccably.

It is certainly not true to say about Alice that the Mikado was "way over her head" we had explained the story beforehand and she thoroughly enjoyed it.

We did our best under the circumstances but the problem seems to me to have been largely self-inflicted by your correspondent.

Interestingly, on our way out of the hall we were complimented by three different groups of people on her good behaviour.

As we believe in educating children early in life, we have every intention of taking Alice to next year's operetta, leaving her younger sister at home, as we did this year.

Jim Belk

Chippenham