Hi John,

That muddies the waters and no mistake. I'd think it unlikely that RTÉ would make two series' about MacColl in such a short space of time, and the material on 'Own Words' was defintely recorded specially. How long are the programmes in the series you've got? If they're 30 minutes each that would make a total of 4 1/2 hours and the one I've got is three hours. It sounds as though RTÉ, faced with the need to make a MacColl memorial, simply removed the stuff about Peggy thus reducing the length of the series by about 33%.

Cheers,

Fred.

Fred,
You say, "Shortly before he died, RTÉ Radio in Ireland recorded a three part biographical series covering Ewan MacColl's entire lifespan. It was called "In His Own Words".
and
"The programmes were actually broadcast posthumously."
So this may not be of any help - but ......
I have some recordings made from RTE Radio 1 in 1988, the year before MacColl died. It's a nine-part series called "Ewan and Peggy" and it began, according to my date on the cassette, on the 6th of June and went on to the beginning of August that year.
I've just listened back to part of the first episode and it begins with Peggy telling how her mother was the first woman to get a Guggenheim Scholarship to study composing in Europe. She goes on to sing "I've Been a Bad, Bad Girl" and to talk about Libba Cotten.
Ewan begins by saying that his background is vastly different from Peggy's. His people were ordinary working folk ...........
It ends with credits that it was presented and produced by John Quinn and had been previously broadcast on FM3 in June 1987.
Any help, or does this muddy the water even more?
bigJ