I have also studied the folk music of the NE england specifically Newcastle upon Tyne in great depth.

I'm happy to report that Traditional Inebriated Ritual / Ceremonial Folk Life in Canny Newcassel continues to this day with the bold lads & lasses of Sandgate & the Bigg Market as wild as ever. Of course such Folk Life has precious little to do with Folk as we understand the term as used by Conrad, which is an elitist yuppie bourgeois middle-class construct and has little to do with the Real Folk / Geordie Urban Proletariat who continue to celebrate on the streets and to whom the very concept of Folk Music, FREED or otherwise, is, anathema.

For more, see HERE - or do a YouTube search for Bigg Market.