Somewhere up the thread there was mention of Adrian House Folk Club in Aigburth. Alan McMahon and I took over the organising of it when Kings Shilling split (I was then called Joan Harvey). Adrian House was a Knights of St Columba clubhouse. Somewhere I have a cassette tape of a recording done at the club of a number of the regular floorsingers and residents.

At that time there were folk clubs every night of the week in Liverpool, and all well attended.

There was an excellent A5-size monthly magazine, "Spin" (produced by the Spinners), which included a number of songs (with tunes) plus song histories, a ballad section, a sea shanty section, and club info, of which I still have a number of treasured copies. When you got up to sing a traditional song, the audience may well have known more about the song than you, and would be at pains to tell you if you gave out the wrong information about it, or conversely would congratulate you on good research if you were able to tell them something new.

Nowadays, audiences know more about the singers than the songs, and are more likely to tell you if your version differs from the most popular version. How times have changed...