I lost the first part of my reply and it is getting late - I'll come back to that tomorrow.

I'm not happy with the idea of it being ok that this music remains the preserve of cosy, inward looking elites. At best it's far, far too good for that.

Neither am I - my point is that it isn't the preserve of a cosy inward looking elite. If it was then the numbers of festivals would not have grown over the last ten years and the number of people attending them would not have grown either. If it was the preserve etc.....then there would not be loads of people buying melodeons (rarely seen in the sixties); more fiddle players than you can shake a stick at; two brass players in a sesssion this weekend and a large mix of other instruments. Bass clarinet x two at one festival I was at. Anyone see this in the sixties? I doubt it.

How come the number of festivals keeps growing - and that many of them have large percentage rises in numbers - where are these people coming from? Clearly this cosy inward looking elite are not being very succesful at keeping things to themselves.

I'd like to be able to persuade my friends to listen to folk music without them dismissing it out of hand before they've even heard it because of what they believe about its image. My contention is that though the media may have given that image a helping hand, the folk scene created it and perpetuates it for themselves.

You do actually say it all there. They dismiss it even though they have never heard it. The folk scene does not give out this message the media do - they are wrong generally since so few of them know what they are talking about. And it is why I spend so long contradicting them whenever I get the chance.

At least you, Dave, are disc jockeying folk to an audience that might sometimes contain non-folkies. That's a good thing.

Thank you and that is true in part. But I am lucky someone gives me two hours a week to play music I love. Occasionally others seem to like it too. And for that I am grateful. This coming Friday I shall be looking at the Anniversary of the Radio Ballads.