When I talked to these two ex-working boat people at Little Venice they were very free with their information, and being proud of their being born 'on the cut' were quite adamant that their experiences were as they reported. They were also proud that they came from a long line of working boat families going back to the late 1800s. They had no reason to tell me anything different. And they stated quite categorically that 'no' - there was not any step dancing, folk singing, or music making as we know it in the folk scene today. Such was simply not part of their culture. They were working too hard.

So what about Bill Gibbons - filmed by the late Barry Callaghan (Garland Films)? Well I guess the narrowboat people in the South (I guess that means south of Brum) simply wouldn't have met any boat people from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal which passed through the village of Burscough where Bill Gibbons was based.

Incidentally the wide boats of the L&L didn't usually have live-in accommodation, but where mainly work by folk living 'of the cut' that is living in canal-side cottages.

And even as a clog dancer myself I take issue with the clog dancing fraternity in promoting Bill Gibbon's clog steps as a 'long lost clog dancing tradition' from the canals in general. I think that what he did was probably unusual and unique to him or his area.

It was also interesting when I asked my informants if they had any contact with the Romany community. It is known that the Romanies had / have a (free-style aka individual style of) step dance and music making tradition mainly based on the pubs they called at. But at my suggestion the response was deeply scathing. No way - we never had anything to do with 'them,' I was told.

But then the response was slightly modified to - well maybe the canal boat people used to have a contact during horse drawn days. The canal boats up to about 1910 used to be horse-drawn and the Romanies traded in horses. So there would have been some contact between the two communities then. But after the horses disappeared there was no real contact at all. I guess the term 'water gypsies' for canal boat-people would be (and still is) deemed to be deeply offensive for such a proud community.

But I am surprised that no-one has properly researched the canal folk traditions - apart from the ubiquitous roses and castle paintings.