AS the daughter of a musician I feel able to go some way toward empathising with Julian Cole over the trauma surrounding his damaged guitar (January 3) and hope he will soon be strumming again.

My dad carefully wrapped his violin in my mother's best pure silk scarf before returning it to a velvet-lined case.

I have seen a friend fussing over his electric guitar, after a performance, with all the tenderness usually reserved for putting to bed a newly-born baby.

Margaret Lawson,

Aldborough House,

The Groves,

York.

Updated: 11:10 Thursday, January 09, 2003