George:
"Adam is very self-sufficient. He likes working towards goals and has been keen to sit for music grades. He finishes one, feels a sense of achievement and moves onto the next.

"He's been like that in everything he does. If we're going for a walk, he wants to get to the top of the hill.

"Our younger son, Matthew, is different. We just felt that kind of deadline approach wasn't something that suited him. He's pretty creative, with his academic work as well as everything else, but he's not somebody who responds to being told every six months or every year, 'you've got an exam to take.'

"You have to decide how wise it is to push kids. We feel that there's a huge amount of pressure on children these days with exams. Adam is coming to GCSEs next year, and the last thing we feel you need is yet another hurdle."

When it came to picking up an instrument, George and Frances felt it best to let their sons take the initiative. 

Frances:
"I think Matthew chose the guitar because he had a vision of himself as a cool guitar player. That was part of his motivation. He'd have been nine when he started. Adam was eleven when he started learning the saxophone. That was entirely his suggestion. I was forced to play the piano from an early age and I think we were both keen for that sort of pattern to not be replicated."

George:
"Matthew was having weekly lessons with a fantastic chap, who was incredibly patient and very nice but it was classical guitar work. It took us about two years to realise that his soul wasn't in it, because what he was looking for was to be able to come back home and strum away.

"For him, the satisfaction comes not from not being able to tell himself or others that he's got grade five or grade six, but from being able to exhibit his skills within the family."

Frances:
"He didn't like practising. It was a mission to get him to do it."

George:
"There came a point when we felt maybe he'd be better off joining a band or something. I used to quite enjoy listening to him. But you kind of knew what he really wanted to do was rip at the strings and smash his guitar. That's where his fantasy was.

"I remember an uncle of mine. Going way back to when I was growing up in Sri Lanka, he never had any formal training, but any time we ever got together, he'd be able to sit down in front of a piano and if people would start singing, he'd pick up the tune and kind of get everybody going. It was part of a family legend."