MAESTRO Mike Hamilton recently appeared in our columns, waxing lyrically about his latest artistic venture.

Readers will no doubt recall that the man with the musical Midas touch is achieving great things at the Royal Grammar School, Worcester.

How times change. I went to a grammar school in Rugby and vividly remember being caught in the library by the headmaster as I fumbled a boogie-woogie on a classical guitar belonging to some revolting swot in the school Elizabethan quartet.

"Stop that filthy jungle music," boomed Stench' Staveley and my Keith Richards moment was brought to an abrupt close.

Once again, I walked the well-trodden path to the dreaded study, anticipating yet another damn good thrashing.

Shortly afterwards, my pal Brian Meredith, drummer in a beat group called the Reprobates, was hauled into the same torture chamber and given a choice. Did he want to continue as a pupil of Lawrence Sheriff School, or would he prefer to be a Rolling Stone?

The latter seemed more exciting than unravelling the mysteries of the coefficient of linear expansion and so Brian soon embarked on a life that involved endless criss-crossing of the Midlands in a lipstick-plastered van.

Three years later, the school had its own rock band I find it quite remarkable that what was once regarded as the ultimate in subversion now enjoys its place in the school curriculum. For over the last half century, young men's appetite for this music has been widely blamed for being symptomatic of Britain's decline.

Not so. Encouraging youngsters' musical endeavours is a healthy, positive activity - and teachers such as Mike Hamilton who mine this rich lode of creativity are doing vital work for the cultural well-being of society.