Just uploaded onto YouTube in 5 chunks after an old VHS tape recently fell out of the loft: The Not The Finger In The Ear Show (1982). At nearly 30 years old it's cringe-makingly dated (check the perms, squint at the jumpers . . . ) but there's some great period music all the same.

In 1982, the then Southern Rag team produced a 30 minute TV show on behalf of the EFDSS via the BBC's Community programmes unit, shown in the Open Door slot on BBC2. The brief was to give the general public an idea of some of the variety of music that they might hear in their local folk club, rather than the stereotyped and clichéd images which were being fed to them by the mainstream media at the time.

The artists who took part were Martin Simpson, Pete & Chris Coe, Maggie Holland and Peta Webb & Webb's Wonders, who all did individual spots before coming together for an impromptu 'Open Door Dance Band' ceilidh set with caller Eddie Upton. Shackleford Folk Club in Surrey provided the venue and MC Lawrence Heath: I introduced the programme as well as interviewing impassioned journalist Colin Irwin (he was so impassioned that his then Melody Maker colleagues assumed that he was on liquid substances beyond his control!)

i.i.r.c. the EFDSS got something like 500 letters asking for details of local folk clubs as a result, not a bad outcome unless the enquirers were keen to know what to actively avoid!

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.
Part 5.