Folk to me, is everything, it's how my mum and step dad met when I was three. he moved in when i was 4, and has stuck about ever since (21 years in fact - and counting....)
My parents met through the morris side my dad had founded and my mum subsequently became a musician and dancer of...i've been dancing sine I was three. The thought of not having something so major like Folk and festivals (especially towersey)and the morris in my life and not having had it as a large part of my childhood/early adulthood doesn't bear thinking about.
there would have been no:
1) going on a bear hunt with geoff higgingbottom aged three
2) getting toffee apple and ice cream all over my morris kit (and quite a bit of beer since then!)
3) No meeting up with people at festivals year in, year out, having no clue of what they did for a living, where they lived, but knowing they sang that amazing song, or played the melodeon so well etc etc
4) no chez nous noodles. (and that would be bad)
5) no waking up in tents, cold, damp but totally happy that you had to now go and queue for the shower in a field full of sheep poo.
6) no amazing concerts (demon barbers at Towersey, Eliza, Bellowhead at Broadstairs
7) listening to Johnny Silvo records and dancing to morris on around the front room with my dad and brother
8) whiling away evenings in music sessions and dancing at beautiful locations around the country when my peers were on street corners drinking white lightning and getting ASBOs, or watching eastenders with a meal of turkey twizzlers in front of them.


I could go on and on and on, but I just wanted to say that in light of all the negativity around young people and folk and everything that has happened on this forum recently. Folk for me, is home. It is everything. And people young and old feel that way, and always will, it permeates lives, and as such will long remain a living tradition long after the Jay-Z's and Linkin Parks of this world are confined to pop history. Simple as that really.

Charlotte (Dillie) xxxx