Well I'm definitely not better than everyone else. I am 34 and have only just started learning the guitar. I tell myself I do it to test my teacher's claim to be patient (he is, I'm still alive).

I have always loved folk music but have had singing lessons for 10 years, focussing on classical - apart from the unaccompanied folk section in the exam - because it's in the syllabus. Only when I failed grade 6 (down to tuning but, probably best not to walk 3 miles to a singing exam)my teacher suddenly said "Oh but you sing folk very well". Hoorah! Great, so what do I do...? How do you study folk singing? The syllabuses are aimed at classical and jazz. Even at singing festivals the folk section is one class and has a certain...academic whiff about it. I've just signing up to the Saturday course at EDFSS and once I've sorted out moving house I will be looking out the folk clubs though I doubt I will be brave enough to sing in front of all those experienced knowledgeable people. I've got a weird kind of stage fright. I've done stand up comedy and yet my voice goes up at least an octave when singing in front of other people. :)

I was at a John Tams gig at The Maltings in Farnham a few years ago and he was, as usual, brilliant. But what I really loved is that he said to the audience "If you want to get up and go to the bar, go ahead. This isn't a recital". That's a good outlook I think.

I've been running a very small theatre company for the last couple of years and have to say that the hire charges of rooms in pubs, certainly in London, are really very high (even before the issue of who pays for the PRS licence rears its ugly head). I ended up rehearsing in my kitchen (very understanding housemates).

Younger people wanting to set up a club independently of the older, more established groups are really up against it on that point.