I woke up to BBC4 in the middle of the item and just KNEW what was coming. I've only been awake about 20 minutes and have sent off this ... which I'll probably re-read when I've woken up and groan over. Oh well, I can always write in again with a different name and email if I need to.

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I turned on Radio 4 in the middle of the Morris Dance report, thought "now this is interesting", and then waited for the programme to return to studio because I was SURE that the topic would be completely trashed by your host and guest. I was not wrong.

I am not a Morris Dancer; I don't belong to a folk dance team of any kind. But I AM fed up of the BBC constantly putting down a genre of music which is very important to society and can make a far greater contribution to current problems than many other musics.

More men participate (at community level) in folk dance than any other form of dance.

Folk festivals are the most socially and economically beneficial festivals - see Arts Council of England report.

Team dancing has benefits for social cohesion, community cultural tourism, and a whole raft of other themes the government keeps claiming are important.

I never make a point of listening to this programme - I find Ms Glover's voice is to speech what musak is to a concerto - and I won't be changing my habits in the future. It took the BBC a while to stop making denigrating remarks about email and the web (I was working in telematics at the time and I was just as annoyed about that) and you 'grew up'. Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen with folk - despite programmes like Celtic Heartbeat wiping the floor with its sister programmes in the ratings.

I despair.

S. Thomas

I would encourage people to write in. I don't think it will do much good, but ...

sian