I am a 65-year-old woman who, with a friend, went to London for the day last Saturday.

I was aware of Big Beach Boutique II, of course, but as we planned to travel back at about 5.30pm, we assumed the rail company would be putting on not only more trains but longer ones too.

Mistake - we caught the 5.38 fast train and there wasn't a seat to be had. It was just eight carriages long and full of young people. We stood all the way home.

There was an unscheduled stop at Clapham, where more people got on, and another at East Croydon.

We were completed surrounded by young bodies, all drinking, smoking and, of course, the inevitable bad language (luckily I'm not a shrinking violet).

They were all very good-humoured and there was no trouble but with rail companies complaining about profits, surely they must have realised - very early on - more trains were needed.

I have no complaints about the young ones' behaviour but the organisation was virtually non-existent.

-Mrs B J Rittma, John1Beryl@aol.com