Georgina Boyes queries something that I said on another Peter Kennedy thread. I suggested that, in an ideal world, Peter Kennedy would have ended up as head of a University Department. I knew Peter when he worked for the EFDSS (I was his assistant for a year)and he was then held in quite high esteem by many people. Did you know him then Georgina? As I have previously said, Peter's copyrighting of songs, a system he got from Alan Lomax, was going on before I knew him and I never liked this aspect of his collecting work. But, and I will repeat this, the problems grew when he lost his job at the EFDSS. I certainly did not approve of what he did with the recordings, but, in a sense, can understand why he acted the way that he did. In an ideal world, Peter would not have lost his EFDSS job and would not have acted in the way that he subsequently did.

Some years ago Rounder Records issued three CDs of "The Folksongs of Britain". They, like the original LPs in the series, were full of truncated songs and the reviews, including ones by myself, were pretty scathing. I had a phonecall from Alan Lomax's daughter asking me if I would take over the series. I agreed, on the condition that the songs and singers were treated with respect. I contacted Peter Kennedy and told him what I wanted to do. But to no avail. Peter insisted that I should not issue the songs in their complete form (Don't ask me why he said that. I couldn'e figure it out!)So, sadly, I withdrew, suggesting some other people who might like to have a go at the reissues. Of course, nothing happened.