The original tradition was of people making music within, and for, their own community. For a variety of reasons, that tradition has largely, in England at least, died out.

The revival has created its own tradition, and its own community. However the community we have created is self-consciously based around the music.

I think there is now a new tradition - the revival has picked up the ball and run with it. On the one hand, it's taken it into the commercial world of festivals and recordings, but at the same time, at grass-roots level,sessions, ceilidhs and morris dancing are thriving at a level that probably hasn't been seen since the 19th Century.

Up until a few years ago, most of my music-making was as a "performer" - in folk clubs, at festival and similar events. Now most of my playing is in sessions, or playing in a band for weddings, parties etc. It occurs to me that what I'm doing now differs little from what the likes of Scan Tester, Billy Bennington, the Bulwers and others were doing. And while some of my repertoire comes from recorded or printed sources (and now from the internet) some of it was picked up from other singers and musicians. The continuity is still there.