"taken up by the non folk general public,so is it a folk song? it appears to be written in folk style, but why has it not been taken up, in the same way that dirty old town or fiddlers green"
,..,

Not too sure I agree with your ground here, Dick. Those two songs, and some others one could name [see thru the thread] will certainly be known to all folk-club-going people such as readers of this forum. But do you really think there are any members of your "non folk general public" who would recognise them by mention -- even if they had happened maybe just once or twice to hear them on tv or radio? I honestly don't think so. Does anyone?

≈M≈

Or any other song familiar to our interests either, for that matter, with exception maybe of ones they learned at school, or one or two others in the smallish [for true folk] "everybody knows" category like eg "My Bonny" or "Loch Lomond" or "Oh No John" (and this last one, not even in a version we would acknowledge, at that!).