"Folk Traditions ARE the heart of England's cultural life and identity"

There's a bit of semantic confusion here for me, regards the use of the term 'folk', much as I enjoy Karaoke and all.

I am a working-class person, who has (relatively) recently discovered that there exists a working-class cultural heritage of song and music of which I was formerly utterly oblivious.

I have inadvertantly stumbled upon a working-class heritage which is both *theoretically* easily accessable by anyone who can so much as hold a tune, but is nevertheless *pragmatically* innacessable to anyone who doesn't also happen to be a white, middle-aged semi-academic dilettante.

I have a real problem with this.