The whole historical thrust of the programmes so far seems to be on a sort of evolutionary model, along the lines of those drawings of apes turning into caveman and then modern blonde Aryans striding purposefully towards the future.
In these programmes the apemen are the "common people", who you are allowed to glimpse briefly doing their simple thing in pubs etc. The musicians then strugglle to stand on their hind legs, in a sort of tottering fashion: Peter Pears, Benjamin Britten,McColl, Watersons etc. Then at last, in their full glory, standing upright and proud in the new dawn, we get to the pinnacle of civilisation and Relevance to the Modern Age, Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. You can see that they are the summit of human achievement, because instead of the short hair of their forebears, they all sport long flowing locks, the men as well of the women. And the trousers: what poet could adequately describe the trousers?
    Trouble is,was Steeleye Span's "All around my hat" actually the peak of reconnecting Britain with its folk music? In my own experience(pretty extensive, I may say) of music making in English pubs, you do not see crowds of swaying drunks singing "All around my Hat". The folk material that everybody, but everybody, knows consists of two traditional songs collected from English singers: "The Black velvet Band" and "The Wild Rover"; and one song written by an Anglo/Scots revival singer, McColl's "Dirty Old Town". And these songs were not put into wide circulation by strangely moustached folk-rockers, but by the Dubliners, a group of much wilder looking Irishmen. Who, I am fairly confident, were well popular before Steeleye and Fairport, not to mention after.