The postings above remind me of a couple of stories.

The first concerns a player once well known around Australia, especially in Sydney; I'll not name him to protect the innocent. This character played English and taught several people well known and respected in Australia as fondlers of the leather ferret. Invited to do an evening at the Fairfield (Melbourne) Anglers Hall he was asked about playing music on Anglos. "Anglo music is next to the sewer" said this very polite gentleman. Later in the evening, he invited those of us with concertinas to play a tune; I recall Geoff Wooff doing a splendid rendition of 'Spey in spate' (this was before he got into uillean pipes). When he saw my case he invited me to play but I declined.

Some years later (1982?) I saw him walking towards me at the Geelong Folk Festival; his eyes immediately noticed my two cases and I couldn't politely escape.
"What do you have there?" he asked, when it was pretty clear they contained concertinas. "Concertinas" I replied.
"Do you mind if I take a look?" he asked. "I don't think they'd interest you, xxxx" I commented.
"No, I'd like to see them!" he insisted.

So I opened the case with the Jeffries and handed it to him. He held it in his hands exactly as if he were at the Royal Melbourne Show, holding a cabbage and trying to judge whether it was worth 3rd or 4th prize; his hands never went into the straps and not a button was touched.

"It's a good one, isn't it?" he said, sounding as though it actually was a prize cabbage as he gave it back to me and walked away.

Years later I was recounting this story to a friend who played English and had recently returned from England. He described searching out a concertina band he'd read about as having played in a little rural village out in the English boondocks. He said he couldn't believe his luck when he found out that there was a player of English concer in a village close to the one he'd read the band was from. He arranged a visit.

He was welcomed by a kindly old gentleman who gave him cups of tea and talked about concertinas. When my mate asked him about the local concertina band his host insisted there was no such band and never had been one. After some exchanges on this my mate pulled out an old newspaper clipping naming the village and giving the facts about the concertina band. When the elderly gentleman read the clipping he stated (apparently quite matter-of-factly)
"Oh! Yes! There was a bunch of fellows who played Anglos. But there was never a concertina band!"

Cheers, Rowan