EKanne, thanks for making me look at Jamie Douglas again. I've only heard this sung by one person and she used a different tune (but not Waly, Waly).

Replying to your question of 30th. January, I'd say that the more ballads you know the easier it is to learn a new one and also to put in a patch if memory fails, because the vocabulary and phrasing style are there in the subconscious to help. Ballads take a while to bed in, though. I don't pretend to be a good singer, but I hope I'm a conscientious one; although I learn a ballad in a day or so once I've arrived at a selection of verses which tell the story satisfactorily for me, I won't attempt to sing it out until I've lived with it at home for a few months.

The first ballad I sang out was a version of Banks of Green Willow which I'd larded with verses from Fair Annie in order to make emotional sense of it for me. I think it worked, because I could feel the audience concentrating, but there's always a lot of room for improvement and I haven't got much of a voice. I'd learned several others from recordings but never sung them out because plenty of other people locally were already doing them (and better than I could).

Valmai (Lewes)