Once more, the original question was not the thread title it was Can any of you AGB's out there tell me why I'm wrong
For one thing, you're wrong because the rest of us are not AGB's and don't appreciate the put down.

I go to folk clubs to hear folk music, but ancient English song is only one part of that. Last night I went to see Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy. I would not question their credentials as folk artists or their place at my local folk club but they finished with "Aint No Sweet Man Worth The Salt of my Tears""Black Muddy River" from Norma's 1996 album. There was no clash with the traditional English songs they had done most of the evening and I did not hear any one who went to th Folk Club express any disappontment.

Toadfrogs dismissal of people writing about things they have not experienced is precious. One of the things that folk music has done over the years is told the stories which might otherwise have faded from memory completely. When Eric Bogle writes about Gallpopli it helps keep in the mind of new generations the horrors of that time. He may not have been there but "the band played waltzing matilda" is a good folk song and to suggest that singing a song written 200 years ago is real but writing about something you have read about, heard about and looked into is phoney is just laughable. Again, last night the support act, the excellent John Richards, sang a song which told of the Public Hanging of a local man and I was glad for the history lesson. Few of the traditional songs about death were written by anyone who had experienced it for themselves.

BillD suggests that only everyone else should define themselves further because his little corner of the garden is the only one which is truly folk Might it not be easier to accept what the range of music which the world understands as folk and, if he wants to, JohnC bill himself as "pure English Traditional music." and get together with those who seek purity. Meanwhile the rest of us can go to our folk clubs and get on with keeping alive folk music old and new.