Incidentally, a lovely man at Bodmin folk club made my then 10-year-old son an authentic washboard, complete with little cymbal and a set of thimbles. He and I once played Last Night With Archie at Bude folk club on a night when Chris Wood and Andy Cutting were the guests, me on the tremolo harmonica and him on his washboard. They were most, er, impressed... My five-year-old grandson now has the washboard.

The washboard is one of those musical instruments that you only give your child at Christmas with the stern injunction "You can keep this as long as you promise never to play it!" :-)