G'day Lamarca,

One interesting thing about A L Lloyd is that he did not collect Australian songs - even though a vast number of folkies talk about the "A L Lloyd: collected versions &c. In his time as a lad out in Australia on some sort of assisted passage (a bit better than being a "remittance man") we worked on outback stations and heard folksongs.

He certainly appreciated them - and they may have influenced his future involvement in folk song and the workers' movements - but he did not even write them down. He admitted this in a letter to Australian Folklorist John Meredith in the 1960s, after Merro queried his use of what was obviously the carbon copies of John Meredith / Nancy Stewart / Russel Ward collected material, forwarded to the EFDSS (English Folk Dance & Song Society) during the latter part of the 1950s.

He obviously had no tunes, as they could not afford to send reels of tape in those days, so he treated the songs just like he treated British material- he put English tunes that he knew and performed them. The exception is the shearing "Belter" Lachlan Tigers, which he had heard and remembered - and now is sung by every bush band in Australia.

The great thing that he did was to perform and popularise the Australian material. There was a lot of bad feeling aomong Australian collectors because the "real" tunes were lost and there was a general feeling that "premature" use of collected material "muddied the waters" for the collectors still working in the field.

On the occasion when i did meet him, I found him quite pleasant and dedicated to his view of the role of folklore. However, mention of Bert Lloyds name in the right end of folkdom is a dead cert starter for an all-in fight - to this day!

Regards,

Bob Bolton