Hovering below the radar of the national media are thousands of organisations that give this country’s cultural life its breadth and richness. I’m talking about the repertory theatres that get reviewed by London critics once in a blue moon, yet pump out a wonderfully varied diet of drama week after week; and the regional galleries and museums that continually astonish with their resourcefulness and quirky diversity; and the local music clubs that manage to lure top-class instrumentalists and singers to school halls or churches, despite being run on a frayed shoestring.

Then there are the doughty little festivals, often based in unglamorous locations, that scale ambitious heights year after year yet get hardly any recognition in the national press. Last week I briefly visited the Leicester International Music Festival and was astounded by the quality and boldness of the chamber-music programme devised by its artistic director, the virtuoso oboist Nicholas Daniel. This four-day musical feast included several premieres, students’ workshops, and a fabulous range of 20th and 21st century British compositions by the likes of Tavener, Tippett and Britten.

How do such institutions survive? In the case of Leicester — and, I would guess, many others — one answer is that the lion’s share of the work behind the scenes is done by indefatigable volunteers. I wonder whether there’s a lesson here for the cultural world generally, especially as it enters into what everyone expects to be a period of grim austerity for the subsidised arts.

Words such as “amateur” and “volunteer” still carry a bit of a stigma, an innuendo of mediocrity and unreliability, that is both unfortunate and undeserved. Britain’s cities on Fridays and Saturday nights would be anarchic no-go areas, for instance, without the calming presence of thousands of volunteer police officers — the Specials. Some 40,000 volunteers keep the St John Ambulance running. Volunteers organise thousands of youth clubs, football leagues, scouts and guides troops, choirs and after-school activities. They are responsible for some of the best heritage restoration projects of the past 30 years — canals, Victorian pumping stations, steam railways, you name it. They govern schools. They staff lifeboats, mountain rescue services and the Samaritans. Without volunteers, national life would be hugely impoverished.

And they often work tirelessly for the arts — the professional scene as well as the amateur one. My daughter is one of many youngsters who act as unpaid stewards at Glastonbury. In return for crowd-shepherding they hear some great music. Other musical youngsters spend their summers as “trogs” (the unseen helpers shifting pianos and chairs for concerts) at Dartington. Their reward, too, is to be part of a top-class musical scene.

It’s not just youngsters who get involved. Arts organisations often benefit enormously from the input of middle-aged or retired people who can bring from their professional lives an expertise in a vital area — accountancy, transportation, catering, carpentry, marketing, plumbing, security, fundraising, whatever it may be. But there’s much more to be gained than just free expertise and labour. Volunteers also plug a cultural organisation into the community. Ordinary people feel that they have a stake; that they are part of a team contributing something excellent to their town. That in turn fosters local pride, and local pride is the key to any organisation surviving in these troubled times.

I’ve just witnessed an example of that in a slightly different field. Our local parish church has a huge, historic churchyard that has been a jungle of overgrown weeds, broken tombstones and impenetrable thickets for as long as anyone can recall. The congregation couldn’t muster the muscle power to keep it tamed and there was no money to have it professionally maintained.

Then someone had the idea of sticking notices on the path through the churchyard, asking for volunteer gardeners to restore the tranquil beauty of the area. To the surprise of many sceptics, talented local people flocked to help. Within weeks the churchyard was transformed. But, more than that, the community supporting the church was widened to include many people who would probably not have entered its doors otherwise. It’s as if the project filled a long-felt need in people’s lives: the need to make a difference to their own neighbourhood.

Of course the professional arts world, like any other industry, can be suspicious of outsiders who aren’t “properly” trained and who might be seen as threatening employment prospects within the business by offering their services for nothing. Our rigidly unionised theatres, in particular, can seem hostile territory to volunteers. But that attitude must change. When deficits are mounting, subsidies are under threat, sponsors are going bust and the public is counting its precious pennies, arts organisations should be welcoming free help with open arms. In some cases it might be the only path to survival.

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