A young lad edged rather nervously into The Radway at the last Sidmouth festival. He played the 'The Sportsmans' Hornpipe' on his melodeon, and in an attempt to alleviate his apparent discomfort at finding himself in the Lion's Lair of all music sessions, someone decided to show an interest in him and asked the name of the tune he had just played. 'Er, I'm not sure', came the reply, 'It's a John Spiers tune'.
What does this tell us? - nothing much? Or an awful lot about where our traditional music is going?
Frank Lee.