I have occasionally been known for my forthright views on local amateur theatre and while some people agree with me others have a much lower opinion.

Over the course of my thirty something years of reviewing local theatre I’ve developed a fairly thick skin although now and again something makes me want to hang up my note book and abandon the theatre for something calmer…like reporting from a war zone.

But then, I’m reminded of how important the arts - and local amateur theatre in particular - are and how being involved can shape the lives of young people.

This was brought home in stark reality on Saturday might when I compered the annual A4B awards which recognises the top amateur performances from the Borough Theatre’s ‘home’ companies.

Among the nominees for awards were adults who I had started reviewing when they were knee high to a grasshopper. Now well known names on the local theatre scene it only seems like five minutes since the likes of Cait Davies, Molly Brickley Clark, Emma Jayne Morris and Falesha Lewis were singing and dancing their way through junior shows on the Borough stage.

Even more frighteningly several of them were at the awards presentation evening with their own children, who are now following in the high-kicking footsteps of their mothers.

“That’s my daughter over there on the dance floor,” said one of those I’d reviewed as a child. “She’s 16 now,” she added.

Another proud mum saw her daughter win an award for playing exactly the same role in Annie I had given her a glowing review for several decades ago, something she was all too happy to point out.

As the evening came to a close and just as I was about to collapse under the weight of all that enforced nostalgia and the stress of not pressing the wrong button on the PowerPoint and accidentally revealing the big winners before the gold envelopes had been opened, I realised that the disco music which had been pounding in the background, had stopped and had been replaced by a completely different sound.

Slowly all those who were left in the room as midnight approach, stopped what they were doing and listened as a group of young people took to the stage to sing ‘One Day More’ from Les Miserables.

Slowly others - some not quite as young - joined in with the singing as the piece reached its climax and it suddenly dawned on me - this is what all of us who are involved in A4B and other arts organisations, do it for.

Time are tough in the arts world and over the past few years we seem to have spent more time battling the authorities and fighting for every inch of ground we can gain than we have actually enjoying the arts but when magical moments like this happen it all suddenly seems worthwhile.

We do it so that in another 30 odd years the children of those youngsters belting out Les Mis, will still have a stage in Abergavenny where they can sing, dance and learn to love the arts.