I think the problem is Malcolm that one senses a lot of hostility from people who can't create anything themselves, so they disguise their non creative state in a lot of waffle about a tradition - a tradition, which by and large bypasses the huge mass of the population.

The Trimdon Grange explosion and Rawtenstall Fair didn't happen yesterday, but there are things happening in the world that capture folks imagination just as much. Look at 9/11 and that song Paxton wrote about the firemen. Young soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I've heard several people at our local folk club in Derby try and express their thoughts and feelings about it in song.

Moreover when politicians get songs like The Men Behind the Wire, or Caledonia banned - I think they know damn well they're dealing with a feeling that comes from the people. Some elemental creative force we should be proud to call folk music.

I'm with the bloke whose Dad re-writes Salty Dog and Tom Paxton every week. Its an expanding universe of folk music.