THE recent release of Moulin Rouge has stirred up powerful memories for David Beckford. In 1953 he helped plug the original version by playing his harmonica while can-can girls from the film danced at London's Elephant and Castle Cinema.

Mr Beckford, of Meresborough Road, Rainham, said: "We performed just a week before the film came out to help promote it. The movie company brought the girls to the cinema and we did a little routine in the foyer. The new film coming out has brought back a lot of memories for me. Plenty of the girls were French, as you would imagine, but some of them were English too."

Mr Beckford was only 18 at the time but was already all-Britain champion player of the chrome harmonica, the standard pocket-sized chrome-plated type.

Mr Beckford, now 66, has collected several more trophies since and still avidly plays the instrument and teaches it to pupils of all ages. For the last 10 years he has played in a quartet called Four in Accord, which has performed as far afield as Germany, Holland, Italy and Spain.

He said: "The harmonica has always been my favourite instrument - it is the one I grew up with. I first heard it when I was two years old when American performer Larry Alder played it on the radio. After that I was hooked."