I MUST congratulate Hampshire Music Service for encouraging more than 2,300 schoolchildren who took ukuleles to St Mary’s Stadium last Friday, in an attempt to beat the world record (currently standing at 2,139) for the greatest number of ukuleles being played in unison at one time and place.

This not only gave these young people a great day of fun with the popular children’s TV entertainer Justin Fletcher, but was one of the many achievements of this vital part of the county council’s children’s service department that has been so successful in encouraging young people to not only enjoy listening to and dancing to music but to actually make music themselves.

As I looked round the stadium at the thousands of young people, happily singing and dancing as they strummed on their ukuleles, it came to me that from among them would come our future composers, conductors, musicians, singers and pop artistes.

It is good to know that despite a huge reduction of taxpayer funding to local government, the county council’s education services are delivering a full, rounded approach to the education of our children.

CLLR COLIN DAVIDOVITZ, chairman, Hampshire County Council.