I felt that John, talking about his family, described a time that has past but in historical terms only just.

What was farming life like at 50 year intervals from say 1500 onwards? Ever changing at a guess. That, I think, is one of the points of the Imagined Village makes. Their wasn't not one simple unchanging experience of England. It is ever changing and the music that has been passed on to us can play a part in who we are now and who we might become.