MacColl once told us that he couldn't bear to listen to his early recordings - they made him cringe - "too slow, to theatrical, too much vibrato".
He was never the subject of a full criticism at the Critics Group; I have little doubt that neither he nor the rest of the group would have welcomed it.
I lived with Ewan and Peggy for a time and often accompanied them on trips to their various bookings.
I was at first staggered, then I got used to the way both of them tore into and critically analysed their own and each others performances each time.
I declined their invitation to join in - I'd have been totally out of my depth.
I often wonder if the Critics Group would have achieved as much as it did had MacColl just been 'one of the lads' rather than the respected figure he was.
I've told this story before, but here goes again.
I was asked to repair their rapidly deteriorating lighting system at the time Ewan was writing the 1968 'Festival of Fools' script (annual living newspaper' put on over the first couple of weeks of the New Year).
It was late December and the light was poor in their flat so I had set myself a deadline of re-wiring so many lights in a day.
On one particularly gloomy day I badly overestimated how many I could manage, so was racing around like a madman trying to get them finished before the daylight entirely disappeared.
Late in the afternoon Ewan appeared from his self-imposed exile at the top of the building and insisted that Peggy and I sit and listen to him read through the script he had written and make comments on it so he could finish it and distribute it for rehearsal that night.
We sat there in almost total darkness while he took notes on what we suggested then returned and finished the job.
We ate by candlelight that night.
Jim Carroll