As I believe that the tradition began to die with the break up of the (mainly rural) communities and is now dead

I'd struggle to agree with you here Jim. After all Cecil Sharp predicted much the same thing which is why he raced around on his bicycle collecting like mad, and only in rural communities. It was the same at the time of the amalgamation of the two folk societies in the early thirties (sorry I can't check the date - off carolling in a minute or two!!)

And yet we discovered the tradition of the Odcombe Carols in the 1970's; Gordon Hall with his amazing talent had been missed by the early revival; as far as I know his mother from whom he learnt his songs was never recorded; I personally discovered a tradition in the year 2000 which had been passed over by every single folklorist for (now) 158 years.

I suspect you may be right Jim, I doubt there is much left we haven't found - but I dare not be certain like Sharp was.

As far as prescribing what people sing - I suspect with Ewan and Peggy it was simply the wrong approach!! They did a fantastic non-political set for a folk club I helped to run. We booked them to talk on the "Long Harvest" set and sing comparative songs as they went along.

And a magical night it was too.

I'll save the discussion on politically correct songs for another time. Martin Carthy and "Prince Heathen" anyone?