Over the past couple of years I have had some of the most enjoyable times of my life playing music and singing and I owe a huge debt to the people who have encouraged and put up with my improving efforts over the last 6 years. I think that had I been faced with the attitudes of some of the people on this thread then I would probably not have had the resilience to have kept trying because I spent the best part of forty-eight years not playing in front of people. Earlier this year I sang at a beer festival in front of a few hundred people and there is no way in the world I would have - or could have - done that five years ago.

But from some of the comments of people on this thread I think I'd have been weedkillered out of existence before my shoots were much out of the ground so that a fully grown shrub could have been substituted - either for their instant gratification or for the sake of quality. Thank f*** I didn't meet them at the wrong time.

So on a positive note I thank the people who put up with my faltering efforts at starting to sing, my acute shyness and the times when I've died in the friendliest of surroundings much to my chagrin and no doubt the listeners' frustration and embarrassment.

So - because it's another side of good manners - let me give out some thanks to a few people who come to mind: my local friends and visitors to Flaxton (formerly the Blacksmiths Arms in Farlington); Ossonflags; Gedpipes; Linda Kelly and Hazel of Hissyfit; lots of folk in Beverley; Mark Kane; all the people I've sat in sessions with from Sidmouth to the Isle of Arran who hopefully have enjoyed some of the things I have played and that we've shared with each other. Just a few of the people who have been a real encouragement and opened a load of doors and avenues.

And to those of you who would discourage people from contributing - bollocks to you.

From my end I practice hard and learn more and reckon I get better as I play with better people. Hopefully in turn we encourage people in the weekly gathering we organise (?!) to get involved if they want to and go out of our way to make it easy for people to feel at home rather than exclusive and up our own arses. Personally I get a huge buzz out of having seen people I know go from non-participators to (in some cases) solo performers at folk festivals within a two year period. They work very hard at what they do I know but if the door had been slammed shut in their face before they had hardly begun then I don't think they would have done that. And for those who will never get to that level it is as satisfying to see that they have battled against all sorts of stuff and done as well as they could.

But I do share some of the frustrations voiced here (and, yes, there are people I race for the loo as their turn approaches) :- of people who never get any better (but I guess that's their choice) who feel they have reached their best even if others know they haven't; of people whose ego and self confidence far outweighs their talent (and there are a LOT of them out there); of people who impose their view of a song or a tune on others rather than use their ears and listen to the singer or soloist; people who can't play in time; people who spoil other people's music by imposing their own; narrow minded bigots and those who 'know what is right and what is the only way to do things' etc

When some friends and I played recently at a hall in a local village to a group of people they commented afterwards how they noticed how many times various of us would close their eyes as they sang and wondered why. What is perhaps curious about this is that a good half of the people that evening had the words written out 'just in case'. I suppose it comes down to that strange phenomenon of see through eyelids or perhaps some of us just like a safety net there in case we should fall.

I enjoy singing and playing in singarounds and sessions but doubt that I will ever get booked as a solo act in a folk club (so as people know where I'm coming from I sound roughly like this - it's recorded in my car during lunchtime at work as I wanted to sing it at our singaround so it's full of mistakes and only the third time I'd sung it and the guitar is very basic and and ... all the usual excuses :)!!) but I sing and play in a couple of groups and am happy in that environment and people seem to like us because they invite us back (we do have a mighty good lead singer though!). But I must be like hundreds or thousands of others who do the same and just enjoy doing it for the fun of it all; for the social bit of it all; for the joy of making music TOGETHER rather than apart; for the hope of improvement; for how happy it makes me. For me that is also something about what folk music should be about (though I totally realise it isn't a definition of it lest we bounce off at a tangent into oblivion)