"how much truth there was in what Harker said." Harker discusses the way that 'working class' culture had been 'mediated' by a series of individuals over the centuries.

And the evidence presented on this thread to 'disprove' his ideas was precisely a selection of mediated accounts, one of which seems to have been a review of a commercially available product, a free copy of which was supplied to the reviewer.

Another piece posted was a lengthy quotation from a source that was not clearly identified that spoke at length about Belle Stuart which contained a mere five words in her own voice. Not only was this mediation, it referred to other, previous mediation, putting layer on layer.