weelittledrummer
However when the traddy/contemporary split got bitter and bloody...

in 1970's, the folk scene was already factionalised and fractured beyond repair.

Where was I when this was happening? From the late sixties until the early eighties, I could go to clubs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings varying from largely trad to contemporary songwriters and there was a lot of exchange and communication between the clubs.
At one, the landlord converted the room to a boxing ring, another became a nightclub and the Lewes Arms carried on until landlord troubles sent it off via a variety of venues to end up at the Royal Oak run by Vic and Tina Smith, Will Duke and Dan Quinn. The current Lewes Arms club was started twenty years ago under new management.

if you had anything to say about your own life, no bugger was interested. the brave lads in Suvla Bay, or Dublin 1916, or the four loom weaver and you were away with a career.

Your life may be interesting to you and, with good presentation, you might be able to make it interesting to someone else but that's what the teenage diary singers think. Middle-aged diaries are even worse. (I once heard a woman sing a very long song about writers block.) Traditional songs have gone through the "folk process"; the good ones have been polished by loving hands (or voices) and the duff ones have vanished into well deserved obscurity. With contemporary songs, you have to take the rough with the smooth.