"There are thousand of Al Whittles, and Richard Bridges - running open mics and folk clubs - all round the country. doing gigs in low prestige places for little money."

True. That would also apply to the artists I work with at Folk Police and other friends who are musicians or who do behind-the-scenes folky things. Most of them don't complain about it - they just get on with it. Most people I know who are involved in folk music as musicians or running labels, clubs, festivals etc have day jobs. In fact that's true of people involved in other sorts of music too. There's loads of music out there. Not everyone can make a living out of it. Me, I'm just happy to have had the opportunity to spend some of my savings on bringing out a handful of albums I'm incredibly proud of. If they break even or make a small profit that's even better, because it means I can do some more. That's the reality for a lot of small labels.

"Occasionally getting 'allowed' to do ten minutes as a support act for some of the officer class."

The larger touring acts usually have their support acts arranged by their booking agents - either someone else one their books or in some cases an artist the headliner have specifically wanted as a support. At least its not like rock music where people often pay to be the support act, though I've no doubt that also happens. Most people I know play gigs wherever they can get them - often not even at folk clubs - or organise and put on their own gigs. It's normal. It's reality. They aren't the 'officer class'. They're just musicians who are doing better than some other musicians.

"This is folk music. preoved by the presence of folk - not 'the folk audience' but folk. All those songs that you pretend to revere - The Wild Rover etc - that is the forge in which they were created."

We live in a different world. Most people who play instruments or sing aren't interested in traditional songs or even non-traditional folk club music. And why should they be? There's loads of other stuff out there.

"Not in the in Right On Performance Centre, by graduates of the hoity toity high and bloody mighty folk aristocracy."

Again, who are these people? The people who play arts centres and rock venues and village halls and so on do so because more people want to see them than can fit in the back room of a pub. They got to that position by all sorts of means, but generally it involves lots of hard work and being good at what they do (even if it's not always to my taste). Luck and promotion also come into it. I look at a venue like Bury Arts Centre, who promote folk and roots music, blues, rock, pop, tribute bands, comedy and so on and have a real commitment to supporting local artists and I see nothing 'hoity toity right-on' about it.

"And in our roles - running little studios, little folk clubs, little open mics... we see loads of of young kids who write their own music, and don't know how to play your political correctness, and 'this is in a modal scale darling' dull bloody conformity games - just give up."

And here in Manchester you can go to loads of bars, open mics, acoustic nights and so on (and even folk clubs) where these kids are gigging. I know this because I go to them. You can go to nights they have put on with their friends. You can go to gigs put on by local promoters who book national and international touring acts who will put them on as a support. You can go to festivals where they get booked (I recently went to Lunar Festival, for example, and you couldn't move for young guitar-slinging singer-songwriters). They weren't giving up because opf alleged 'political correctness'. They certainly weren't giving up becasuse fRoots covers folk musicians from overseas. Equally, they don't tend to be interested in the Grumpy Old Man folk scene when they could be playing to their peers.