I think I have quite a different attitude to folk to a lot of musicians: I don't really relate to the custodial aspect of folk musicianship. For me folk's just one music among many others that I enjoy and play – the one I listen to the most, sure, but nevertheless just one among many.

So for me this is an interesting question and has nothing to with devil's advocacy or irony. I could never find it satisfying to just play traditional material. While I can sort of understand why other people do, I can't imagine ever really wanting to do this myself. I like writing songs; I love traditional material, but I don't perform any and doubt I ever will.

Obviously, most musicians do a bit of both. But every now and then I've seen gigs from singers who are quite clearly very talented and creative of exclusively traditional material and I've thought it's almost a bit of a shame that they're not actually writing their own songs. As if they're conserving a body of song at the expense of their own. One example: I love pretty much everything Anne Briggs recorded, but I think the songs she wrote herself are head and shoulders above the rest of her repertoire and wish she'd written more.