Yeah, yeah, Shirley Collins was waffling on about her feud with Ewan in Folk Britannia. I think she's utterly and completely wrong to try and make out that people from generations past were not making political statements about their lives, their working conditions and social inequality through their music. Of course they were, just as their heirs do today.

As for Leadfingers' complaint that Ewan was 'hypocritical' about what was and what was not acceptable as folk song, where's there any evidence for this? I think you'll find that what Ewan was concerned about was performance standards. His own repertoire was extraordinarily varied and supremely well executed and his wish was that others should aim at an equally high standard.

Ewan was above all an actor. What he achieved (with Joan Littlewood) in the Theatre Workshop, with Peggy and Charles Parker with the Radio Ballads and with the Critics in The Festival Of Fools was a magnificent amalgam of agitprop theatre and people's music.