Peter walked 'off stage' , took the book out of his hand , walked back to the stage and never missed a word !

Excellent stuff (although I hope it made him more friends than it lost him). Most of those poems are seriously long, and delivering them non-stop and at speed (which is basically what he was doing) is a real challenge. I've been working up "Back to the army again" (no particular reason, it just stuck in my head); it's a long job.

The 80s weren't kind to folk generally and traddies in particular - Steeleye had made it big and then buggered off to Wombledon - but I do wonder why PB had such a hard time of it. He really seems to have dropped off the radar as far as bookers were concerned - on one occasion, when he phoned asking about a gig, they hadn't even heard of him ("sorry, you're Peter who?"). (I heard this from John Kelly.)