I don't know when I was given a recorder but at age ten I took it to Recorder Club. I was put in Beginners where they were playing G G G G... got bored and started playing Mull of Kintyre. Sent to Advanced where they discovered I couldn't read music and threw me out.

When I was seventeen my grandfather in desperation blackmailed me into taking clarinet lessons by saying "wouldn't you like to learn a PROPER instrument? I mean, if one was lying around wouldn't you pick it up out of curiosity? If the person it belonged to couldn't be found?" to shut him up I said I suppose I would and - surprise - next time I visited there was a clarinet and a lesson lined up. I took my grade three but gave up when I went to uni because I hadn't discovered folk music yet!

After 25 years or so of experimenting by myself with the recorder, and then discovering the CD and Folk Music four years ago, I think I make a passable noise but I'm probably doing it all wrong.

So now age 33 I am looking longingly at the local (mixed) Morris side which I mean to join in September and wondering if I will ever dare ask them if I can play in the band?