From many recent postings here there seems to be a growing emphasis on how 'professional' singers should behave and conduct themselves.
By 'professional' they mean people who present folk songs to the general public, whether they do that for a fee or not.

All of this is very interesting and informative but please do not lose sight of the fact that when I made my opening thread in this debate I was approaching the question from the viewpoint of a 'social' or 'amateur' singer who enjoys far more informal social singarouns and song circles, far removed from the proffesional circuit.

I reiterate where I was coming from again in the hope that I can nudge the prevailing mindset away from just 'the proffesional's perspective and view-point' and back a little more to the perspective of the average man and woman in the street who enjoys joining in with a song or two in a far more informal singaround and social setting (like a good old British pub).

I do this in the hope that some contributors here might look at this question in a slightly different light and might show a little less arrogance and pomposity and a little more tolerance, humility and patience towards their fellow man; warts and all.

As I said, I never approached this subject from the perspective of the 'professional' but rather from that of the jobbing and interested folkie 'layman'.

In fact, if I was a 'professional' singer, I would never have dared to ask the question in the first place because if I was a true professional and was getting paid to sing and that was how I made my living I do actually hope that I would never, or only very occasionally, have to resort to sing from a song book/crib sheet - unless my memory just got so bad but people still put up with me.

Chris