I've been trying to extract some memories from the fog of time. As with so many things I now realised I should have been paying more attention at the time.

I think the first time I heard Mary was at the Stockport College Folk Club at the Odfellows Hall on Greek St but I may have heard her in a pub somewhere first. Not a club just an informal session. Possibly the Arden Arms between Brinnington and Denton.

After that I saw her many times principally at the Pennine's club at Hyde United but also at the MSG.

I can't think I ever saw her after 1974 but do seem to have a memory of her turning up at a singaround somewhere in more recent times.

Listening to people talk it seems to be another facet of Mary that people talk of depending on when they knew her. I'd never heard "Closing Time" before. The song that always pinned ears back was her singing of McColl's "Jean Harlow" which couldn't have found a better voice to inhabit. The Dylan stuff also found a good home.

Mary's sad death has prompted me to dust off a couple of songs I wrote in the 90's, that both had some remembered elemements of Mary in their composite character. Both gone down well when sung in tribute.

Memories have been stirred in other areas as well. Is Bryn Pugh the one I remember as the first ever person I saw on the stage at MSG?

Alex, I presume with the reference to the Purple Gang is the man who never missed a drumbeat at a Stockport College gig where they'd decide to import a pair of strippers right in front of him? And went out with Barbara Holt?