Vicky Ewan: Lost opportunity for our youngest generation

Musical instrument tuition in primary schools, it seems, has largely fallen by the wayside.
This represents a huge loss to our youngest generation, and is thrown into sharp relief by my own wonderful, under-appreciated experience.
I can still remember, at the tender age of six or seven, a peripatetic teacher visiting my primary school to winkle out those who might be interested in taking violin lessons. Eager to try my hand, I volunteered, and demonstrated sufficient skill and enthusiasm to make the grade.
Thus began a decade of weekly lessons, during school hours, with me as one of a number of pupils benefitting from the attentions of our heroically patient - and I can only suspect we tested their musical sensibilities sorely - tutors.
Multiple other disciplines were on offer. My brother took up the flute, while friends were schooled in other wind and string tuition. There was similar provision for brass and percussion instruments.
It seems incredible now to remember the hours of time devoted to this discipline, both during school hours and afterwards, with the establishment of orchestral collaborations at the local grammar schools spanning several hours on Friday afternoons.
There is little doubt that I gained hugely from these opportunities. Alongside getting to grips with the individual demands of my chosen instrument, I began to hone basic skills in reading music, I discovered how to blend with other musicians, and I learned how to respond to a conductor.
These observations helped to foster within me an enduring relationship with the art of music, normalising its study and performance in my daily life from a young age and planting a deep-rooted and abiding love for its existence.
Many of my closest friendships were formed at its feet with peers who were similarly versed in instrumental study; bonds were formed through a mutual reticence for lesson practice, strengthened during lunchtime orchestra rehearsal sessions, and hermetically sealed on Friday afternoons, when we would gather our various cases and set off on a bus commissioned - free of charge - for the sole purpose of transporting us to the grammar schools for Music Centre.
That arrangement, despite our loudly vocal mutterings of discontent each week, was a source of envy for peers who were not part of the gang; they could perceive the camaraderie that it conjured up but were unable to partake in it.
I hadn't realised how fortunate our generation was until the time came for my offspring to enter educational establishments, places that, to my disappointment, were devoid of the opportunity for gratis musical tuition.
A couple of my children were blessed with altruistic staff members prepared to invest their precious lunch hours in teaching the recorder, but nowhere in the budget or the curriculum, it seemed, was there the freedom to impart how to play an orchestral instrument. I believe our children are the poorer for it.
As my daughters and elder son journeyed through secondary school, they were approached by visiting independent teachers who raised the question of extra-curricular lessons. We agreed - somewhat reluctantly, as these were far from inexpensive, and it was something of a relief when their interest waned.
In addition, it seemed there was far less provision for external orchestral gatherings, to my regret - though my children would have been less inclined to go than even their mother had been. Still, perhaps music will find a way...
Lately, our younger son has begun to seat himself at the ancient and ill-tuned piano in the lounge and bash out a few notes. Listening idly from upstairs one recent afternoon, I was surprised and somewhat gratified to recognise the semblance of a popular tune.
As he persisted, correcting and re-correcting himself, I realised that he was demonstrating an instinctive ability to pick up a melody, albeit via single-fingered method. I am trying to curb my reflexive delight, anxious not to smother his burgeoning proclivities with too eager a response; yet I can't help but be secretly pleased.
Perhaps he is exhibiting the promise of a tender talent beginning to spread its wings - or perhaps it's just the twitching of a hungry young mind freed from the tunnel focus of screens.
Whatever the case, I am happy to sit back and listen. And maybe I'll get the piano tuned, just in case.