but all my family were regional accent speakers, as i suspect yours were jim"
I still have a strong Scouse accent - I tend to modulate it when I sing without (hopefully) sounding phony because that's what we were taught to do in school - to "speak properly"
MacColl was often slated for his 'phony' Scots accent, but it wasn't
He grew up in a Scots family surrounded by Scots people - he grew up speaking in one accent at home and another in the street, as did many families of exiles
I had meals with Ewan, Peggy and Ewan's mother and sometimes, when Ewan and Betsy were talking, sometimes you might have been siting in on a Bangladeshi conversation.   
Even now, when I'm on the phone talking to my sisters, Pat will know who I'm talking to because my accent changes
This is a thousand miles away from the phony Mid-Atlantic accents that are used by so many singers - neither fish nor fowl
Jim Carroll