THE thing is, there's nothing I can tell you that you don't already know.

Involvement in the arts as a child and teenager is life enhancing, life changing. It is about more than the music or the play or the dance. Often it's very little to do with the music, the play or the dance.

You know that performing teaches young people about teamwork and enhances self-esteem. You know playing in an orchestra instils discipline and the understanding that a part is as important as a whole.

You know that dance is similarly discipline, also health and self-expression.

There's time keeping, responsibility, stress relief, cultural understanding, concentration, perseverance.

Look at the young people from Parkland, Florida, campaigning for the #NeverAgain movement for stricter gun control - they met through drama club. Bold, outspoken and politically switched on, all of them.

There is no downside to a young person taking part in the arts, only the opportunity for physical and mental growth that will stand them in good stead for a lifetime, whether they proceed to a career in the theatre or not.

So what on earth is the thinking behind leaving Scottish Youth Theatre on the knife edge of closure? What could Stirling Council have thought, threatening the future of Big Noise Raploch? What are councils doing, increasing the cost of school music tuition?

I was an extremely compliant child. At primary school I learned the tenor horn because the tenor horn was the only spare instrument the school had to loan me.

The other two girls in my little band of junior musicians played the cornet. How, oh how, I wished I could play the cornet. How light it looked to carry, how dulcet its higher pitched tones.

"Honk," I wistfully sounded on my horn.

But secondary school was the opportunity for a fresh start. Surely at big school they would have an abundance of instruments to loan.

Off I trotted to the music department. "I would like to learn to play the cornet."

"You mean the clarinet," came the reply. I had never heard of such a thing but assumed the music teacher knew best. I went along to a trial session where my embouchure was tested. Mrs Scott brought something ludicrous, in many parts, from a small box. It was decidedly not a cornet. I was crushed. Twenty years later I still play the clarinet.

You'll note throughout this anecdote that nowhere did the thought cross my mind that one might purchase a musical instrument. So, let me be open about my bias: free music tuition in schools is for the likes of me. Kids like me who otherwise would not have been able to learn an instrument because their families could not possibly pay for it.

My lovely gran eventually put down a deposit for a clarinet and we paid it off but first I had to prove dedication and demonstrate a little bit of talent in order to ensure the purchase would be worthwhile. I was privileged that was the case.

I also played the tenor saxophone (loaned) and percussion (loaned) in school bands and local authority bands. I don't know that there is any point to explaining the impact music had and has on my life, it seems so self-explanatory in its benefits. Certainly, after years of close tutelage from the Lanarkshire legend Betty Pearson - my school's head of music and all-round firebrand - I would never let anyone deny me a cornet again.

There has been a nation-wide howl against the threat to Scottish Youth Theatre. In a neat demonstration of just why it is so important, powerful, confident voices have spoken out in its favour - powerful, confident voices developed in Scottish Youth Theatre itself. Gerard Butler, Kate Dickie, Blythe Duff, Karen Gillan, and on.

Nicola Sturgeon has said that, in the face of the potentially fatal funding cut from Creative Scotland, the Scottish Government will see what it can do.

Similarly, the cry of angst at the threat to Big Noise Raploch - one of a truly life-changing orchestra programme that runs in our most deprived communities - was enough to make Stirling Council think again.

We thought the benefits of the arts were so obvious as to be sacrosanct and this is why there is such shock. Suddenly the big name organisations are in peril and we must speak out for them.

We must also keep a watchful eye on the state of music tuition in schools. It is less visible than the well-publicised arts organisations, it has less clout, but if it disappears then the arts will become the preserve of middle class children and private schools. That cannot happen.

All children deserve equal access to the aesthetic, academic and artistic benefits of performing arts. They will become better citizens for it and we will have a better society. That is worth every penny we must spend on it.