Barbara - thanks for re-constituting this thread , it's fascinating. It seems there is one thing in common; everyone started very young, either by what they experienced in their teens, or with their families in childhood.

For me - well I was just a hippy student. I'd been able to play several instruments by ear since I was a little kid, and I loved music. None of my family were musical, but I learnt to sing at school and went from there.

The early stuff of Simon and Garfunkel appealed to my deep romantic sense (which has got me into awful trouble ever since!), and from there people like Paxton, Dylan, Lehrer etc grabbed my political attention.

It wasn't long before I discovered a very rich heritage of English folk music, through the medium of Lindisfarne, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, Pentangle, Amazing Blondin and others. I tried to learn guitar (God how I tried!) but my inability to read music only let me play what I could by ear. It's not too bad, but far from good enough for performing. Then I had a bad accident and my left hand was smashed up, so that put an end to that.

After a long break I rediscovered folk music quite recently, after my marriage broke up and some concerned friends took me to a folk club. It felt like meeting once again a long-neglected, dear friend.

Nowadays I sing mainly, and play the alto recorder which I can still just about do, but not as well as before. I love to write my own songs, and arrange new tunes to old ones. (A laborious process of thinking of a tune, playing it one finger on a piano, then trying to write it down!)

And having found the music once more, I know I'll never leave it again.

Thank you, Mudcat.