Welcome to the real world Ian. Opinions and support, follow.

I trust that you have recovered from the excesses of The Old Road Tavern. You do raise a number of good points, which I had been thinking of making anyway, but here goes.

We (us old fogies) do encourage young people like yourselves (and you all have undoubted talent, as I can personally confirm). This is done by having contests and organisations like the one whose umbrella your group comes under and generally by the fact that older folk naturally encourage younger folk. If I understand correctly, your group entered a competition for young musicians, won your section and part of the prize was an appearance at the festival.

You may have problems with the effectiveness of these measures, but they are there. There is no such encouragement given to older people wanting to make music professionally, (Old Musician Of The Year) such is the nature of the world and they just have to accept it.

We may in fact make things worse by this encouragement, by making the young people we encourage, think that this sort of special treatment is their right and will continue permanently? It will not and the earlier you learn this lesson the better.

Such is the arrogance of youth (and I speak from experience, having been young once) that they expect older people to constantly give and they will just continue to take, returning only their un-questioned talent and brilliance.

It was a delight to see and play with you and your friends, but a little humility and appreciation from yourselves for other's talent's playing there, both young and older, would have been very welcome. I was a little hurt I must confess, the first night, after making room for you to sit in, introducing myself, talking together, helping you with the festival map and playing, that you left, without even saying good night. Do people over a certain age cease to exist or is it an embarrassment to acknowledge to your friends that you actually know some elderly people?

You must accept and I know from speaking to you that you do, that the size of your grouping will present practical problems to those who would book you, as it was only the smaller group that was playing the festival. A smaller group would certainly solve some of your problems.

You are speaking from a position of having been given a very privileged entry into the world of music, one that not everyone else has. If you could try a little harder to see things from their perspective you may just see how fortunate you are and understand that the tradition will continue, with or without you.

I am sorry if this comes over as a personal attack, it is not intended as such, or as not being very supportive or encouraging, generally of young musicians. I hope that it may turn out to be helpful, in the long run.