I am lucky enough to have two forbears whose occupations provide a lot of folk songs - my great-grandfather sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco and a great many of my others were illiterate farm labourers, which I'm very proud of (resist that temptation Martin! Resist it!). Also soldiers but only wartime recriuts - great uncle died at Passchendaele.

If you sing 'Puff the Magic Dragon' and think it folk music you are a real sad bastard Martin. (Actually I forgive you, I think your outbursts rather fun).

I agree with you completely Teresa. Folk music has the power to make you feel connected to the past in quite a spooky way - I remember the first English song I heard, it was 'Brigg Fair' and all my hair stood on end. "I had that sense of recognition...here was something I'd known all my life, only I didn't know it..." (Ralph Vaughan Williams, on discovering English folk music).