Oddly enough I was thinking of The North Country maid the other day. Just a conversation of town vs country living and it seemed to fit the thoughts.

I'm afraid I'm a bit younger than you and don't know The national song book. Singing Together starting late 60s for me. Mostly from pamhplets although there was a blue ST book sometimes used. We also had a couple of Welsh songs.

Influence on path in music. I think with me there was initially a mix of mother playing songs on the piano, parents recording The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem on tv to an old reel to reel as well as school. I liked things that (I guess you could say) sounded "folky" to me. My own direction did change later on going towards the (mostly Irish) session tunes more than songs but I still like the songs.

One other comment. When we had folkinfo, we didn't get a lot of reponses to any songs but I'd suggest the song that attracted most interest from the ST ones was Italian (at least the melody was, I don't think it was a translation) - Marianina. Maybe it was just it was easier to find there than on the larger sites or maybe there was some nostalgic reason. I don't know but I know I loved singing it.