whenever I go to a folk club, which is rare ... Everyone seems to know one another...

Perhaps if you went more often then they'd know you too? And let's face it, if there's any club where people get together but never get to know each other or have a chat, most of us would avoid it like the plague.

Re membership fees, it depends on where the club is. I was fortunate enough to be taken to the Windsor folk club by DDW when I was in town, and that takes place in a rented hall. Great acoustics, but you obviously don't get the hall for free, so there needs to be some kind of entry charge to cover that. Some also hire pro or semi-pro performers, so entry/membership fees pay them directly (as a percentage of the door) or indirectly (adding up over multiple sessions to a fixed hiring fee). Some just take place in pubs, and any pro/semi-pro musicians are paid for by the pub (and made back in the beer price), in which case entry will be free, but the quality may be uncertain. You get what you pay for, and if you choose not to pay then you can hunt around for an alternative.

You're right about the advertising though - it's bloody hard finding them. But the same is true for any non-professional group. Good luck if you want to go looking for clubs for folk dance, amateur dramatics, cycling (especially offroad), rock-climbing, hill-walking, rollerblading, etc - in fact, any activity that can take place in a public space. I don't think folk clubs are anything different there, and they may actually be easier to find, because at least you know they're likely to be happening in pubs so you can get the phone book and ring round.

Back to the original poster, as far as the "middle classes" putting a damper on the "mass audience", you might want to check which class is the majority these days. Of all the people saying they're working-class, how many currently have a job involving manual work? Farmers, welders, mechanics, gardeners, that kind of thing. And how many have houses bigger than a two-up two-down terrace? If you work in a shop or an office, or if you're living in a nice semi (or even detached), then you're almost certainly some variety of middle class. I don't care who your parents were or what your accent is or how you consider yourself, you've become middle-class by virtue of your own finances and occupation. Most of Britain has been middle-class by this definition since the last half of the 20th century, with the advent of automation in industry and farming.

For some reason it's popular to claim "working class credentials", presumably in the mistaken belief that other classes don't work, but that's the purest self-deluding bullshit of "I'm in touch with my roots, man". As an extreme example, Jennifer Lopez released a single saying "I'm still Jenny from the block". Oh yes? with your multi-million-dollar house and your dozens of servants? I think not. And vice versa, if you automatically put someone down for their "privilidged white middle class background" regardless of their musical abilities, you're more biased than anyone else. Take the log out of your eye first.

Not that this matters for a folk club - I've not seen any kind of class-conscious bullshit myself. There's definitely people like that out there, but that's just a symptom of general bastardry.

And Lonnie Donegan and Donovan as exemplars of the working-class tradition?! I beg to differ. Lonnie Donegan was the son of a professional violinist, so that's about as "privilidged white middle class background" as it's possible to get without having a peerage. As for Donovan, he recorded his first demo at 18 and was on national TV by 19, so he wasn't exactly someone who put in years of "hammering it out". What they had was a love for the music and plenty of talent. If you don't have both of those, it doesn't matter a damn how working-class you are.

Graham.