There's a very mixed attitude to guitars. There are some clubs where the MAMWIG (middle-aged man with guitar) is the standard act, and an evening could easily consist of floor spots - and possibly a guest spot too - of nothing else. Anyone arriving without a guitar is deemed to be a non-performer and may not be offered a spot unless they explain themselves.

But the guitar is very recent in British society. On a recent TV documentary about the guitar, one musician said that when he bought his first one - I think it was in the late 1940s or early 1950s - and carried it home, people in the street genuinely didn't know what it was, as they'd never seen one. I think its association with US music, both folk and pop, is what has set some UK trad folkies against it, although other stringed intruments with a not dissimilar sound have been used in our native music for centuries.

And I can't begin to guess why it is that the concertina and the melodeon seem to sound as if they've always been there, even though they're both quite recent inventions. Maybe they remind us of older reed instruments like bagpipes? I don't know.

Piano with folk music I just don't like, personally, but I can't really explain why. It's much more common in Scottish music than in English or Irish.

Marje