"What may be happening is folk's youthful element are staying out of a debate and a club scene they see as irrelevant."

The tide does seem to be changing here it seems. Twentysumthings are discovering the genre anew - or so I hear. There was even a proper dishy/trendy young fella, couldn't have been much more than twenty (far to young for me anyway) performing at one of the amateur events I attended a while back. He'd got his young dishy/trendy mates with him too. Metrosexual hairdo's, skinny black jeans and all. Quite a surprise to me, but nice to see. It's the thirtysumthings like me, and fourtysumthings (including my friends), that seem to have been completely bypassed.

My own pet theory is that English folk has possibly gained a sharp leg-up in the wake of the strength of the revival in interest in the 'Celtic' folk scene. A 'viral' thing, so to speak. Cultural contagion.