At the Wheeltappers' and Shunters' (sic) or the London Palladium –
Let 'em all forget folk song and forget me as well."

As a bit of a fan of The Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club* I might take exception to this, likewise the implication that The Revival has ever been about the people from whom the songs were collected, or that PB himself was in any way concerned with the overarching leftist polemic inherent in The Folk Delusion. Working class culture will always be edgy, incorrect & frowned upon those who consider themselves its betters be they Left or Right. This much is reflected in the songs they made and continue to make as part of a myriad of Living Traditions of truly Popular Music which, in being real, are of no interest whatsoever to your average Folk Enthusiast, who was never that much interested in Peter Bellamy either, nor he in them**.

In any case, The Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club closed its doors in 1977, the same year as Kew. Rhone., Inedits & God Save the Queen; the same year, indeed, as PB nailed his contemporary colours to the mast with The Transports, though on my signed copy of the original vinyl he's helpfully added a QANTAS flag to that the transport ship.

* I watched it at the time, naturally, with friends & family, but really got in to the re-runs on Granada Gold back in the mid-1990s. Epic, proud & subversively hilarious TV. Happily, there's a lot of it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=comhKMltqxw

** I have somewhere in my keeping a live recording of a PB gig at Keele University Folk Club circa 1976 in which he praises the bright young things whilst openly dreading his booking at Preston Folk Club the following night.