In my ignorance, I simply did not know, as I developed my tongue-in-cheek fantasy around the surname ‘Grime’ in my last blog, that a prominent contemporary composer is called Helen Grime; or that one of her compositions, Everyone Sang (2010), was sandwiched between Sibelius and Mahler in the BBC SO programme in this year’s Aldeburgh Festival just across the R.Alde from where I was keying. I had not previously come across the singular ‘Grime’ as a surname and so thought I was being quite witty in inventing the character Alfreda Grime.

I apologise to Helen Grime, and doubtless scores of other people called Grime, for any offence occasioned by my playing around with their surname.