"Are you sure you knew him Jim?
Met him after a concert at the MSG in Manchester around 1965 - he asked me to join the Critics Group in 1967 (when I rewired the lights in their maisonette.
Lived with them for a month when I first moved to London and was a member of the Critics group till it broke up.
Pat and I remained friends with Ewan and Peggy after the Group broke up - that included carrying out a six months long interview with Ewan on his ideas on folk-song.
Ewan volunteered to work with our 'London Singers Workshop' for a period and took part in our meetings for about a year.
We stayed in contact with them right up to Ewan's death - Pat went to the funeral - I couldn't get time off work.
Pat and I put together two radio hour-long programmes on Ewan's ideas for Irish radio - they were broadcast around the time of his 100th anniversary - yeah - we met him a couple of times!
"I suppose the bickering can come about by differences in opinion over his work"
Would that where the case - I can't recall a serious discussion on his work - anywhere.
Plenty of gossip about his wartime brush with the law, his (perceived) politics, his name-change and other gossip, but little about him as a creative working artist.
"or have achieved sainthood "
No-one ever suggested they have Steve - they were all flawed human beings who made mistakes - but the barriers put up around discussing Ewan's work has to be experienced to be believed - not least on this forum.
I confess - I loved MacColl's singing - I became a ballad nut on the strength of the 170-odd Child ballads he breathed life into.
But that is totally beside the point.
When asked to hold classes by a number of folkies in the early sixties, he set up a self-help Group which provided an ispirational body of work dealing with every aspect of singing and song - unique, as far as I can see.
I realy don't know of any other major project that did this.
It's still around - mainly locked away on archive shelves - we have it here.
It seems an omission verging on malicious neglect not to use it.
Jim Carroll