well as one of his boyhood friends remarked in the tv documentaries about him wasn't totally to be trusted with the facts. In particular the friend said that EM had told a previous documentary maker that as a boy he had roamed around Manchester with a head ful of lyrical thoughts about Engels. the friend said this was in fact rubbish.

one of the main problems of the revival is that we haven't attracted critics of any great note. Literature had Leavis, Tillyard and Wilson Knight - we had Karl Dallas and Colin Irwin. Both nice guys apparently - but neither of them inclined to challenge whatever load of balls singers were talking that week - at least not in print.

Its okay, but there is no account - and it becomes very difficult in retrospect to understand just how some of these unique talents did develop.