We discussed Bert very briefly last night at our Singaround. Dave Bishop, who has been singing and inspiring us all in Manchester and many other places for about a thousand years said he remembers Bert turning up at a club in Peterborough sometime in the 1960s and singing to an audience of teenagers and mesmerising them with his songs and stories.

John Routledge, singer and smallpipes player, another millenian,if that's a word, made the point that when Bert worked for the Coal Board - writting in Coal Board publications and asking for any songs connected with or sung by miners he recieved a lot of material. Some were complete songs with and with out tunes and some were fragments. This became on editing , I think, Come all you Bold Miners.

Bert left a heritage of folk music much richer than he found it. What we do with it is up to us isn't it?