"Revival collectors' actions must, of course, be considered in the light of contemporary, rather than late twentieth-century, attitudes. In such a highly stratified society, was what appears to us today as widespread exploitation - or at least patronisation of performers necessarily felt to be so at the time? .... Genuine regard seems to pervade the letters from Cecil Sharp's informants published in his biography and some of them certainly maintained an exchange of correspondence - and gifts - with him over a period of years."
The Imagined Village, p. 53.

Are you sure you read the book before you burnt it?

Georgina