We were quite a poor family, and I didn't own a really playable guitar til i was 23 - although I had learned to play on five quid Rosettis and the like.

Still since i owned that first good guitar -(a Jedson, my wife got me one Christmas from Kays Catalogue) - probably the most important thing in my life has been trying to play the instrument better than I could the day before.

What I am trying to say is - that probably to guys like me and BWM, who take playing very seriously, the blokes (and women) with ringbinders and and still struggling with the three chord trick and coming out to play in public - probably jar more on us that than they do on you.

However that's only half the story Guys like Roger Quigley who has run the The Sailors Return in Weymouth every Wednesday provides a place where people can get started and more experienced singers can perform as well. Roger also runs the Wessex Folk Festival which is a terrific festival for traditional dance.

in a typical sailors evening you will hear every aberration and variety of folk music imaginable, and it is welcoming and inclusive. And that is a damn sight more healthy than the scene I grew up with where either you were trying for a career in showbiz, or you were looking for a neurotic alternative to being an ordinary human being. Either way, you had a licence to look down on others.

The scene isn't a comfortable place for those of us who remember evenings of great entertainment, and rubbing shoulders with the great professional performers of our generation. but it has its merits. and its not our go.