Oh, what bollocks from Rod Stradling..... Most degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on! I bet a huge proportion of those people whose songs you collected had no University education and I'm pretty damned sure that a fair few of them had what 'we' would regard as NO education! Cecil Sharp was a mathematician but gave that up to become a music teacher/collector! I bet there are more people out there who love singing the songs because they are great stories and memorable tunes, than have a degree in anything!

If it weren't for people like you with your 'little reel of recording tape', we'd have hardly any of these wonderful songs and tunes. It seems like centuries since I hear the Houses sing ~ a long time and another life ago!

(And if you really want to annoy Mr Stradling, tell him that his taxes are done by people who barely scraped their maths CSEs.... that should make him sit up and think!)

LTS