Fred McC;

In other words, where the BNP seek to use traditional song to isolate the British from the rest of the world's peoples, for me it was a stepping stone towards understanding the rest of the world's peoples, and to empathising with them.

Quoted for the truth, Fred. I've always banged on about folk music being the heritage of the working folk and how it tells us, if it tells us anything, that we're all in this mess together and we hardly need the BNP divide and rule tactics. In fact if the BNP didn't exist then I suspect "the establishment" would need to invent it...or have they done so?

You put it better than I did, because, yes, folk music connects us to a time of struggle and adventure/adversity that none of us face any more in the western-world, but which others less "fortunate" than us still do.