"Rest in peace" is pretty unhelpful for somebody who is on the sort of search I was describing - if you've heard of some fantastic miner-songwriter from Durham, you're going to want to find as much of his work as possible so you can get new songs to sing, and find out what you can about him as a person. You are then going to feel cheated if he turns out to have been imaginary.

There is one good honest reason why Lloyd might have invented imaginary sources. A mineworker who'd written something like "The Blackleg Miner" would probably be less interested in getting credited by name for it among miners the length of Britain than in making damn sure his own mine manager never found out he was responsible for it. I've no idea if protecting sources was ever Lloyd's motivation, but I'm sure the idea has crossed the minds of people trying to find out more.