Greg, your remark may be partly tongue in cheek but there's obviously some resentment behind it.

You claim to have set up your recording session as a reaction to all the publicity that "English Music" was getting in the south. You need to understand that musicians and researchers in the south were dealing with a different set of problems: traditional dance music was dying out, the EFDSS were indulging in an American square dance craze, your typical "folk dance band" sounded like Mantovani on two piano accordions, and when a few surviving musicians were discovered who seemed to have a bit more English tradition behind them (Scan Tester, Bob Cann, The Bulwers etc.) the traddies got really excited about rescuing a style of music and dance that had nearly died out and that was English (as opposed to Irish, American or Scottish). I'm sorry if their enthusiasm went over the top, but there was a palpable sense of discovery and excitement about it all.

In the south, the view about northern music (especially in the NE) was that it was doing fine thank you very much, and didn't need a lot of reviving. In fact some of us were quite jealous. As for Cumbria and Lancashire, I don't think I knew much about that at the time (I didn't know much about anything at the time), except there seemed to be a lot of clog dancing from those areas, but you were probably quite right to make an effort to put your musical area on the map.

Even so, I don't think you should pick on Rod Stradling as speaking for everyone else. He doesn't represent my views, not those of many other folk musicians I know in the south of England, about what's English or what's traditional. There's one or two other folk around here who I have to get on with but don't share all their views about everything either. It unfortunate that few outspoken and controversial people get all the publicity.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with Morris dancing, even Cotswold, when it's done right.

Anahata