I enjoyed Peter Aspden’s witty quip that people would rather have gone sailing with Duran Duran than listen to the “ugliness and rancour” of punk (“Punk comes to Disney and Sotheby’s”, Life & Arts, May 14).

But it’s arguable that without the Sex Pistols there would be no Duran Duran.

The group maintained that their musical blueprint was to combine the Sex Pistols with Chic. Something they finally realised with the song “Planet Roaring” which was a bonus track on their 2015 album Paper Gods, a record produced by Nile Rodgers of Chic that featured Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols on guitar. Their now iconic 80s record sleeves were also designed by Malcolm Garrett, who cut his teeth working with Buzzcocks, the Manchester band founded in response to seeing the Sex Pistols and who organised the punk pioneers legendary shows at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976.

Gigs that in turn proved a call to arms to the future members of Joy Division and The Fall among others.

Travis Elborough
Author of ‘The Long-Player Goodbye: the Album from Vinyl to i-pod and Back Again’
London N16, UK