I had a number of points to make on this thread, but Brian Peters has said most of what I wanted to say, and expressed it very clearly (probably more clearly than I would have done!). Thank you, Brian.

Concerning the number of young people involved in folk music, I believe that there are fewer than, say, a few decades ago, but there are still significant numbers out there. What is of some concern to me, is that many of them look at folk music in the same way that they would look at other styles of music, i.e. "stage" performance being the norm. Their reluctance to appreciate singarounds/sessions/non-amplified settings means they are missing out on what is for me a key aspect of the folk scene: the sense of community/comradeship/camraderie/call it what you will!

I perform regularly with a five-piece band with full PA system and I find it thrilling. However, I also spend a lot of time in sessions/singarounds/folk clubs which give me something that I can never get from a "gig". That special something is what singers/musicians/miners/farm labourers/the men on the Clapham omnibus/mariners etc. have, presumably, been experiencing for centuries and which I've tried to describe, possibly inadequately, above. Folk music is not only a matter of musical competence; it also has a context. If folk music is seen by the next generation of folk musicians as nothing more than a performance art then, to my mind, something is lost.

In spite of my concerns, I should tell you that at the Greyhound Folk Club in Maidstone we have a bunch of young musicians who are not only bloody good at what they do, but who also appreciate being in a singaround setting and have sufficient humility not only to enjoy listening to and joining in with people who are significantly older than them, but who also indicate that they are willing to learn a thing or two from them. Would that there were more like them!