"Beyond that, as far as I'm aware, music in oral tradition contains works by titled people, works written for wealthier patrons, works by professional entertainers as well as works by many we don't know anything about."
Really? Perhaps you might like to name a few - I always thought that anonymous meant "Of unknown or undeclared source or authorship".
I can almost imagine Ewan MacColl singing "I'm an honest working man, and I drive a Pickfords van".
Why not; for somebody who grew up in 19320s-30s Salford I would have thought a Pickford's Van would have been a luxury.
Sorry Red Max - my "bollocks" wasn't aimed at you particularly - it pre-empted bloody arrogant nonesense like:
"A significant number of folk songs are too well crafted to have been penned by the unschooled."
I'm afraid if feeling a little class-fragile at present, possibly due to the fact that the suggestion that folk music may not have been made by the folk came a little too close to a proposal by a couple of forelock-tuggers that members of the royal family are entitled to indulge in racist abuse.
The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library is the jewel in the crown of EFDSS. Despite this fact, it is underfunded, under-used and under-appreciated (sometimes by EFDSS).
The idea that somebody won't use its facilities because Seth Lakeman can't get a booking at C#House says all that needs to be said about the individual concerned. Persumably she was a regular before Lakeman visitated us - or wouldn't they book Michael Jackson either?
Jim Carroll