Hmm . interesting - don't think I'd seen that last before, otherwise I might have commented on the sentence "Our forebears were loyal to this when they formed the English Folk Dance and Song Society". Since the EFDSS was an amalgam of the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society, he's certainly less than right on that one!! The FSS did NOT restrict itself to consideration of English folk song alone - indeed at least one of it's early committee members was referring to "world music" as being of interest long before the term was used by certain worthies on the roots scene these days. Editions of the Folk Song Journal contained articles on song from all parts of the British Isles, and individuals such as Lucy Broadwood were intensely interested in song from all parts of the globe ... Lucy was intensely interested in Gaelic song, and regarded her collections of phonograph recordings of Gaelic songs as one of the pinnacles of her life's work. So, no, the formation of the EFDSS via it's forebear on the song side at least had nothing to do with being "loyal" to regionality. But most of us knew that anyway, didn'twe ? Hey ho....