Hi Greg,

Hope you picked up my message about next year's Charles Parker day on the Charles Parker thread. Regarding the present one, I am probably about to tell you something you already know. However, nobody has mentioned it up to now, so I should point out the Village Music Project, which is run by John Adams of Salford University, and which documents C18/19 English fiddlers.

The project's website is at http://www.village-music-project.org.uk/ . I've just been trying to open it to see if your name is there, but the damned thing is on a go slow at the moment.

Incidentally, I wonder if you know anything about Cumberland mouth musicians. It's a very slender memory unfortunately, but my father lived in Cumberland for a while in the 1920s. When he heard Irish lilting, he remembered the old Cumberland folk had told him about an itinerant mouth musician who used to tour the area and lilt or diddle for dances. He couldn't remember any more than that unfortunately and is now dead.

Cheers,

Fred McCormick.