WHEN I was a lad, several of my pals started a rock group.

Usual set-up in the early-Beatles era; lead, rhythm and bass guitars, drums and vocal.

I remember going to watch them make their debut at the Central Club.

Luckily I’d only ordered a half and I managed to sink it and escape down the stairs before their second number.

I can’t remember what Brian and John and the rest of the gang called themselves. Dire Straits rings a bell. Dire anyway.

What they needed was Mark Bateson and Paul Davies behind them.

They would have knocked ’em into shape – just as they are doing now with a new generation of music fans.

The two pals run a music school in Darwen and local lads and lasses can’t get enough of it.

Says Paul: “We’ve been going for about five years and we’re really busy.

"There’s a lot of interest in music, especially among the youngsters. It’s a great hobby.”

Paul teaches just about any contemporary vocal form while Mark teaches guitar – electric, acoustic and bass.

They have more than 50 students, some as young as six – and they’ve had some pensioners.

Mark told me: “It's surprising how many folk get to retirement age and decide to take up the guitar again. It might be 40 years since they last played but now they have the time.”

Most of their pupils are youngsters. It’s not that they all have stars in their eyes; they just want to sing or play, perhaps at their school concert, a talent show or a family party.

It was always one of my youthful ambitions. I used to fancy myself as the next Benny Goodman on the clarinet. The guitar wasn’t much of a challenge, I imagined. Actually, it’s not at all easy, says Mark, 25. But it is very rewarding, while the theory of how chords and scales relate to each other can be fascinating, he says.

Mark and Paul, 26, met up at Blackburn College and went on to study music teaching. They write a lot of their own songs, often to pass on to their students who then have the freedom to explore and develop them.

“It's a lot of fun,” says Mark who is rather critical of today’s chart music which, he reckons, can be over-produced and lacking in creativity.

It’s a riot of fun, energy and noise at their Percival Street HQ, especially now that one of their former students, Jak McNally-Burn, pops back to give lessons on the drums.

The lads staged another of their regular Elite Music performances at the Library Theatre last night when about half of their pupils displayed their talents in a near three-hour show.

In this column I have occasionally had a dig at today’s youngsters who all too often complain that there’s nothing for them to do.

Well, get off your backsides, kids. Ditch the cider, the alcopops and the fags – and try music.

You never know. It might stop all the bingeing and whingeing.