Back in the mists of time on Friday afternoons at my school, having cunningly evaded the lure of the combined cadet force and marching around in a sweaty uniform, I was forced to join my fellow non-martially inclined refuseniks in spending a couple of hours singing ‘folk songs’ from grubby well thumbed books. Directed by a fearsome Scottish lady teacher at the piano. Enthusiasm was assumed and enforced by power of her mighty will and baleful stare. Anyway, somewhat appropriate to the topic in hand, I remember one such piece of dreck that started: ‘On yonder hill there stands a lass, mark well what I do say/I’ll go and court her for her beauty/Will she answer yes or nay? Oh, no John, no John no John no.’ Or something similar. A torture on fine days, stuck in the school hall when the sun was shining, only relieved by the collective thought that at least we weren’t with the suckers outside being shouted at etc. We were obviously what the country was coming to, in the contemporary term of approbation. Smoothing irons were also dashed and coasts of High Barbary invoked. Maybe it was some form of suppression of the endemic folk culture by the powers that be? Still gives me a shudder or two in remembrance so maybe it worked…