FolkieDave - My point is that when I was involved in running a folk club everyone else was about 23-26 years of age and so were all the organisers of all the other folk clubs and festivals I went to. (Except the National)

Not sure when that was. When I was at University in the 1970's the Folk Club was very well attended and full of young people (perhaps because it was a university to state the obvious). I dare say that a number of people involved at that time then went on and continued their involvement as they had got an interest. The 1970's interest no doubt looked back to the folk boom in the 1960's.

I'm sure that there are a group of people who have been involved all the way through but I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't people of a similar age to me (I'm mid 50s) who have growing children or grown children, have some time on their hands and an interest in music; I play in a rock band too but that is a lot to do with my son's interest in music and a group of friends who are somewhat younger than me, but I still have my interest in acoustic music and my concept of what folk music is (sorry all let's not go there again...) and it's easier to start a 'folk club' or acoustic thing than get a rock thing going.