Got no beef with Steve Knightley - he's lived down the south west and that's how he sees things.

The antebellum thing really hit the ground running in the 1970's. After eric Bogle's massive successes with green Fields of france and the band Played Waltzing matilda. And of course Ralph with Maginot Waltz.

Bill Caddick came up with another epic in The Writing of tiperary.

you couldn't fault these guys - because it was a genuinely fresh perspective, and they were inspired.

by the time Bill was singing I'm in love with a Gibson Girl - I thought it was getting a bit formulaic. Looking back as a discipline. It when I started to despair of folk ever being a mode of expression that I could access. Its still easier for my generation to discuss and write songs about WW1 than The Falklands.

Martin Carthy in a an interview with Guitar magazine's special volume on acoustic players tells of a band getting booed at Cambridge for saying thet Thatcher's role in that campaign was somewhat less than saintly.

We're out of practise when it come comes to telling people - this machine kills fascists. but the fascists still want to kill us.