I've never liked the Trimdon Grange song. Wth its funereal pace and expectation of us all to be sad about people we didn't know - i reckon its sent more folk club audiences scuttling off to the bog than Ansells bitter did in its hay day.

Whereas the Alan Price geordie Boy got people talking about Jarrow. Credit where its due. Price seemed an arrogant prick when I went to see him in concert. But the song communicated. when its lost the zeitgeist, the spirit to move - I reckon songs have lost the right to be called folksongs. they are for those careful curators of the folk tradition. folk museum pieces perhaps.

i might be wrong - but i seem to reckon there was a mining museum near Trimdon - and they don't even know about the song there.   I seem to recall asking them.

mind you - they don't have any mention of Sam Larner or Peter Bellamy in the fishing museum in Yarmouth. Or even a tea towel with the Rufford park poachers at Rufford park.