I'd had an affinity with folk music long before I realised it: all my favourite hymns as a child I now know were adaptions of folk tunes, usually by Vaughan Williams. But I can think of three particular moments since then, of which two were aural: hearing The Young Tradition (including, of course, Peter Bellamy!)and hearing Bob and Ron Copper.

Peter Bellamy and Bob and Ron all sang 'Spencer the Rover'. This led me onto the rather different moment. Frank Kidson was one of the early collectors and I am astonished by how much he collected. But the eye-opening moment was this comment:

... "Spencer the Rover" has been, despite its terrible doggrel, popular in many parts of Yorkshire. ... The words are found on Yorkshire ballad sheets, and no doubt they are the production of the aforesaid Spencer, some wandering ballad singer,who has not been endowed with much poetical genius.