"But then I suppose that is the problem. and its the reason so many folk clubs are empty.."

I've never run a folk club, so I can't help you there. But I do work on festivals. Having booked and seen Roy Bailey on several occasions, I cannot remember anyone walking out in disgust at his choice of material. And before you come over all prolier than thou, I don't believe that folk clubs were packed with ex-miners but folk festivals are full of middle-class, wine swilling hoorays. As it is not a requirement to take the social and political history of every attender at the door, it is always possible that someone may be offended by pretty much any folk song. But it is equally possible that someone who hears the song, and has experienced something similar, might feel moved to find that their deeply-held and unexpressed emotions have been articulated skilfully by another. I have had experience of this myself - the fact that the singer could not possibly have had the experience himself firsthand (as he was a man) was irrelevant - I was still deeply moved. But maybe that's because I'm not working class enough or something.

Roy Bailey's show with Tony Benn, The Writing On the Wall, is especially popular. The Nottingham Evening Post selected it (as part of Loughborough Folk Festival) as their folk gig of the year for 2008. I don't think any ex-miners wrote to the paper to complain about this choice, but I could be wrong.