Bert Lloyd was among the first singers I heard (on record) - my first girlfriend bought me the LP of songs from The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs - I love it and his singing; quirky, yes and sometimes it misses but he had a commitment to the song without what I felt was Ewan MacColl's solemnity.

His broadcasts on the BBC Third Programme, like "The voice of the Gods" or "The Folk Music Vituoso" - were sometimes a bit tangential but brilliant in their range of examples and often in their insights.

Ian Russell edited a volume of essays called "Singer, Song and Scholar" (Sheffield Academic Press, 1986) in which Leslie Shepherd contributed "AL Lloyd - a personal view", Roy Palmer, "AL Lloyd and Industrial Song", Vic Gammon, "AL Lloyd and History" and Dave Arthur, "AL Lloyd 1908 - 1982: an interim bibliography - two pages of books and nine of articles and essays (many of which appeared in Picture Post) Dave is still biographising.

A group of us invited him to Belfast in the early 70s to give a talk and concert. He was a lovely man and, as some of the anecdotes have indicated, very fond of young women but never, so far as I know, behaved in any but a fatherly way. I think the most impressive thing about him was that he was the first of the English scholars who knew that singing was more important than study - and the first of them to be a really good singer.

I also met him at some of the early Keele Folk Festivals - the prdecessor of the (English) National. Very knowledgable, very approachable ; he wore his learning lightly.

I have just this evening listened to the new Topic "English Drinking Songs" which combines several earlier vinyl releases but has at least one item I have never heard him sing before.