Barry Kirkman, of Callstock, Cornwall, writes:

I thank residents and visitors alike for the support they gave us, an itinerant touring street busking band, Phat Bollard, over the weekend of Dartmouth Music Festival.

Two bookings in pubs and four hours on the street on the Saturday made the festival an amazing, rewarding and enjoyable experience for us all.

For those who can't place us, we were the five-piece folky band with two guitars, one singing, a cajon, a tea chest bass, a mandolin and a couple of dogs. We blocked the road a couple of times. Well you did, sorry about that.

We turned up on the Sunday lunchtime for another busking set to be rejected by two people purporting to represent the Festival, demanding donations from us, to the festival, to help pay for the bands that were being paid, or we would not be allowed to play.

How democratic this decision was I have my doubts. We had already made donations into the buckets and encouraged, as part of our Saturday sets, that the audience also make donations into the buckets, which they did, while not forgetting our 'hat'.

The bucketing volunteers continuously and profitably circulated our crowd, 'shaking' their buckets throughout our music. It was difficult to tell whether this was a protest against our music or simply a degree of rudeness or just a blindness as to the acceptable decorum of those attending a concert, listening to the music and the words and enjoying the absorption into an atmosphere, without the clatter and demands for money.

I feel the collections detracted enormously from the enjoyment of the festivalgoers.

All in all, I felt we added a considerable element of musical diversity to the festival, bringing that special democratic relationship with the crowd that only the street band can bring that is so different from that of the hierarchical raised stage. Grunter and punter forming the performance together with no social fences. A music festival without a street element, whether official or unofficial, is very incomplete.

We had a great time and went home with a warm and rewarding memory and are sure that that is the same for so many of our supporters.

So through your letters page, may I express deeply felt apologies to all those who we had promised a Sunday set, and hope that we will catch one another on a street near you in the near future.

May I also express deeply felt thanks for the truly amazing reception we were given.