As someone who grew up working class and whose aspirations are now undoubtedly middle class, the kids I remember who had access to instruments were of more elevated stock than myself and those instruments were always acoustic. People who had to wait for their own wages to pursue music usually did so on electic gear.

You should have tried growing up in the West Midlands in the seventies, G. All the working class kids wanted to play in heavy rock bands, whilst all the middle class kids wanted to, erm, play in heavy rock bands. Okay, bit of a generalisation, but I firmly believed at the time that the entire youth of Walsall were united in an abiding love of Purple, Zep, Sabbath and Heep. It was a moment of sheer truimph the day we got Gong/Here and Now's "Floating Anarchy" onto the school record player...

Sorry for the drift within a drift, CS. For the record I think folk arts are like everything else. They can be elitist but they don't have to be and they're not intrinsically so. I also think that elitism, for a whole host of reasons, is often in the eye of the beholder. There are many times I have felt as if I were on the outside looking in, but when I have come inside have been mystified I could ever have felt that way. There are other times I have headed, whimpering with gratitude, straight for the exit. Deep, me? You bet!