One of the councillors yesterday asked me why we needed to play in the pub? I replied, why not..........Which seemed to be an acceptable answer. But thinking further I realised that it was the other way around.

For in the past sing-alongs, folk and music hall songs among customers would have taken place in public bars. Conventional public entertainment and dances would take place in separate function rooms and usually be charged admission. Certainly my first experiences of live music were in halls and back rooms of pubs.

It is only fairly recently, 70s and on, that conventional entertainment started to take place in the main body of the pub. Later cafe's and wine bars. Certainly outside London and the big cities.

It is this movement of conventional entertainment from function rooms into the bars that has confused the issue. Non musicians now think it unusual for there to be unpaid music made by customers in pubs, where it has in fact been perfectly normal in village pubs and bars for many years.

In fact conventional (paid) entertainment in bars, is the newer and more unusual development.