..Then again perhaps we don't see them again because Bert has chosen that night to mumble, moan and groan his way through a 20 verse ballad that he 'learned' (i.e. copied down the words in an exercise book) from a June Tabor CD...

LOL Shimrod. OK hands up Mudcatters! Who has ever heard Bert sing a ballad. Except maybe The Ballad of Bethnal Green. Or for that matter mumble, moan or groan a song.

The purists who try to stop people are like that Guy at The Philadelphia Folk Song gang who told me that I sang "The Barley Mow" wrong. I guess the ignorant fellow had never heard that there is more that one traditional version of that song. And I learned that song years before anyone had heard of June Tabor.