Kenneth Williams! As a subject for Mudcat discussion...and why not?

It is said that the character of Rambling Sid was devised in order to lampoon the activities of the BBC's folk song and dialect collecting scheme. This admirable operation (the collecting, that is) was conceived I believe by legendary BBC producer Brian George and people like Seamus Ennis, Peter Kennedy and Bob Copper were recruited, amongst others to become collectors. The scheme was a great success and samples of recently garnered material were played weekly to huge radio audiences. Much of this material went into the permanent archive of the BBC and much was lost or cast aside for the sake of expediency; magnetic tape being at a premium, it was not unknown to overecord songs which were 'duplicates' - what we'd now call variants! Nevertheless, some fine songs and voices were caught before they disappeared forever...just listen to Bob Copper's recording of Ned Adams' 'Bold Princess Royal' the only song he knew incidentally, but it's fairly awash with salt water and atmosphere.

Anyway, like lots of good comedy, feeding off satire and current affairs, Kenneth Williams and his team of writers obviously saw a suitable case for treatment in the collecting scheme. Rambling Sid was born and some alternative country ballads were thus preserved for posterity.

It's food for thought, however that the various shows in which KW performed have endured and recordings can be bought almost anywhere, whilst the fruits of the BBC's historic collecting scheme are extremely difficult to track down.

I guess that's folk music.