he spent his life in the *Durham* coalfields and so would qualify only marginally, if at all, as a "Newcassel" songwriter.

My point exactly.

He wrote of the Durham coal-field and the culture thereof, though he did write of missing a train to Newcastle once, did he not? Must check up on that! He celebrates the parochial in such a way that certain of his songs still survive in folk memory. For example you can talk to people who know about The Marley Hill Ducks who know not of Tommy Armstrong, nor yet the song; on one occasion I overheard a Stanley man singing the chorus of Oakey Strike Evictions but whilst he didn't know the rest of it (just something his father used to sing) he could tell me where Oakey's Houses used to be.