I don't know what the music education is like in schools in the UK now but although we did have an excellent schools radio programme (Singing together) in the '60s when I as in primary school, there was little else but although enducation might contribute, I do not think that this is the reason for so little singing in public.

Having read this thread again, it seems to me that the main reasons for the decline are:

Laziness - ie. It is too easy to be entertained rather than make some effort to do this for ones self.

People are used to listening to music with heavy backing, amplifiers that make people sound better than they really are... And worry about singing on their own as they don't come up to that standard

People are afraid of being a little bit different and seem to follow what the powers of the media suggest that they should do and unfortunately, where as buying the latest chart music is acceptable, social singing seems to be something that is only suppposed to be done by very eccentric people - you could loose your credibility if you dared to join in with it.

Peer pressure seems to be a particulary big factor when it comes to the younger ones. Ceri, our 16 year old flute layer has told me that she has been made fun of in school both for playing folk music and for playing music with people like myself who are a lot older than her.

I do agree with Frank Hamilton when he said rebel. I have been doing this locally for about 20 years now and although I have not achived a lot, I founded one (thriving) folk club and was the founder member of 2 local sessions and we do get the occasional youngster. I was actualy one of 2 of the first people living within 10 miles of Llanduno to start playing the Celtic dance music in local folk events and now we have 2 (admittedly not brillaint) sessions in that area a week so it does work - it is just an incredibly slow process.

Jon