I ENJOYED your Those were the days . . . feature on when Marlene Dietrich played Glasgow's Alhambra Theatre ("1966: Marlene arrives in Glasgow", The Herald, May 10). I was fortunate to have been there for that fabulous performance and waited at the stage door afterwards.

As you can imagine, it was mobbed with fans but I held back until she was making her way to her taxi. Several more autograph hunters had the same idea and as they approached with albums ready, she insisted: “I don’t do autographs.” However, I had a trump card and proferred the original German LP featuring Blowing in the Wind, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, The Little Drummer Boy and so on. And to top this, I said to her in my best Higher German: “Aber ich heisse auch Marlene!” (“But I am also called Marlene!”) How could she refuse? And of course, she didn’t. “Du armes kind!” (“You poor child!”) she replied, no doubt aware that a German name had not been great for a wee girl growing up in the Second World War. More than 50 years later, the LP, signed “Dietrich fur Marlene” (“Dietrich for Marlene”) sits proudly atop my record player.

Marlene Macowan,

Burnbank Terrace, Glasgow.