Thanks Don, but I'm not really sure I'm a man of courage. Blind ignorance, perhaps... ;-)

I don't think classical technique is really essential (although as someone who does play a bit of classical, it's something I like a lot). But just using it to learn clean fingering and strumming is the best start you can get. When he can strum 8 beats to the bar and make the chord changes cleanly, and he's doing reasonable barre chords (Hotel California is recommended), then he's probably ready to move onto an electric.

Graham.