...for a minority of the populace that's true. Sweeney. Crowsister wants to know why more people don't know about the EFDSS sound archive and why they don't have access to it. There are two issues here: funding and status. Even if you put the sound archive on line, for free, right now, 95% people in England would not suddenly be on their knees thanking god for this wonderful treasure laid before them - they'd carry on watching X Factor and eating their Pringles (presumably this is the sort of enduring folk activity you're referring to, Sweeney?).

For this aspect of our national heritage to be celebrated, it needs to be valued. More visibility would help, and this could be achieved through an acknowledgement from the government that this stuff matters and deserves recognition. Look at the centre for Irish traditional music that was opened in Dublin a few years ago, with state-of-the-art conservation facilities and great accessibility. It was a multi-million pound project. The Irish Minister for Culture attended the opening. That's because their musical heritage is important to the Irish. English traditional heritage continues to be a parochial irrelevance or, at worst, an embarrassment. Folk may "endure", but for most people in England it doesn't even exist.