I was a major source of half the world's cloth at one point in history

Well done, GUEST :-)

As for Mike Harding, I agree he is (or at least, was - I don't know what he's like these days) indeed a good folk performer, before the comedy overtook the folk aspects of his act. He was good at comedy too, and it must have been very lucrative for him, so you can't blame him for neglecting the folk for a while.

A totally different song with the same title, but an equally good one, IMO, was written by Colin Radcliffe and John Meeks.