I'm really quite angry about this.

DS, I almost can't believe you don't understand. If you check the Comhaltas threads, 20 years ago Irish traditional music and song had almost died out (so it is reported). A programme of awards resulted in the music being played. Now it is ubiquitous.

Look around even this thread - one of your apparent supporters saying that the only people playing English are the Carthys. It isn't true, but it is the perception.

The last fest I went to was the Pigs Ear Folk Ale. Programme toppers the Young Coppers who do sing English folk songs. Pig's Ear also do some English folk song. Who else? Me (yes I did briefly get on stage). I don't think I heard many other English folk songs the entire weekend. Many fine songs, but I think not many other English folk. Oh yes, a Band called Dave did the Drunken Sailor and Whip Jamboree, and there were a few shanties in the sing. Yes, DS, I do try to sing as much of my tradition as I can, because it deserves not to be lost. I'm not sitting and wingeing, I'm doing (and some like it and some don't and that's their call - I don't claim to be all that good, but I'm doing what I can and I do try to breathe some life into my tradition by arranging (I had three goes before settling on that word) the songs).

But there again, you don't seem to be able to read either (and, I almost can't believe, you don't know who Lord Denning was).   Go back and read what I said. I know this may be hard, but then try to stop and think.

It doesn't need government money: any festival could have an English folk song performance competition at pretty well no cost.   Why don't they? Point proven.

Oh - and if you can't read, DS, can you count? How many English performers were there in the Irish and Scottish and Welsh (if any) folk awards? Can you count as far as zero, or haven't you reached the concepts of the Arabian mathematicians of over a thousand years ago yet?

And while I'm at it, DS - have you bothered to check how many entries in the Smoothiechops awards were folk at all?

And further - if Sonny Boy Williamson was right (which, actually, I think he was) why would it be racist to say that the English can't do Irish, Scottish, or Welsh (or other American as distinct from blues) either? Or vice versa?

There seem to be three bodies of fools ranked against the idea of an English Folk Award: the ones who wish folk to die, the ones who wish English folk to die, and the hardcore PC who will permit any person of identifiable ethnicity the defence of his or her culture - except the English. Let me ask you Greg. What are you doing about Cornish song? Not my place to tell you but we had a Kent thing (I was not involved in organising) some months back and I eagerly look forward to the next. Maybe I will actually be able to get into the sing!


George, in places you are the voice of sanity on the thread. You bring great skill as an observer of English society and framer of songsummaries of such society (and a mellifluous voice to aid the telling of your observations). You do not denigrate English folk song. But I don't think I've ever hears you sing and English folk (1945 definition) song. You are right (IMHO) to say "The answer I came up with is "in both places", in other words I love, and am proud of, both my inherited and my adopted cultures. I would neither abandon my Greekness, neither would I shun my learned "Englishness". And from that I made the logical step that one ought to remain proud of their own culture, even while they recognise their less savoury aspects and try to correct them". It is a point I have made to some near-relatives quite argumentatively. They are proud of having abandoned their birth class, and I say that they must be proud of who they are and their origins even if also proud of self-improvement. It is a point some of my trade union colleagues make to me - that never having been working class I am at best a cuckoo in their nest (Hell, what does that make Tony Benn?). Let me make it back. I am English, and it is right that English Folk song should not be lost. I will do what I can to preserve it and many others do not. One step in the right direction would be awards and contests as Comhaltas has used to assist in the preservation of Irish folk music and song, although I would be happier with more flexibility as to interpretation. There is a fine distinction at best between prescriptiveness and taste as to performance, and all judges of such competitions are to some extent victims of their preferences, but the songs and tunes must live, not be pickled in aspic or they are no longer "folk". If they are no longer played they will be dead.

Sorry to go on so long but I am really rather angry.