I am no great believer in ninety percent of the "Celtic" twaddle spouted about folk music. But it definitely struck me that a sort of audit of ethnic groups in Stoke-on-Trent should start with a Welsh song. Not because a modernish Welsh song would have any great connection with what the lads and lasses would have singing in 300AD before the English came, but at least there would be a strong linguistic connection between modern Welsh and the language spoken there.
    Now I live in Penkhull, which is on the hill above the centre of the town of Stoke, the Oxford Dictionaryof English placenames suggests the the best possible explanation for early forms of the name would be Pencoed Hill. And the first bit of that is defintely a British name(or s we would say now, Welsh.
    And, in the absence of any record of of the music and songs of those who lived there before the Celts arrived with their shiny new Iron Age swords, huge abilities to organise pissups in breweries but relatively little else, and a fund of great songs and harp tunes, they will have to do to represent Indigenous Stokies in my great work of song collection.