Good luck with the program Jim.

As I've mentioned in some of the other threads we've been involved with I live near to where Ewan lived with Joan Littlewood in the 1950's. The authorities observed and reported on them and their visitors here. A pretty little grouping of cottages on the top of Werneth Low. In as rural a setting as you could imagine with that fabled land across the road(from someones story)where the Travellers pitched up.

Alan Lomax Jr recorded his mother singing for the Smithsonian Archives at this address. The views from The Low are legendary with the Pennines, Kinder Scout and Bleaklow on one hand, Salford, Manchester and the surrounding industrial towns below and the flatness of the Cheshire Plain (as well as it's hills) on the other hand.

This is it, Jimmy Miller and his mother Betsy Miller singing Eppie Morrie. 1951, Oak Cottage, Higham Lane, Gee Cross, Hyde.

http://research.culturalequity.org/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=7807

My understanding is he moved in here in 1949 (DOT is credited as being written for "Landscape with Chimney" for this year) until Joan Littlewood moved the theatre Group down to London in about 1953 and the two divorced (amicably). A move Ewan didn't want to do so the parting of the ways occurred. As I said, amicably I believe, as they collaborated for some time afterwards resulting in what seemed like a strange anomaly of Harry H. Corbett of Steptoe fame cropping up on a Ewan/Topic recording of Sea songs. Corbett was one of the noted actors of the Theatre Workshop group.

Without having made a precise historical investigation, the timescale seems to me to fit, with the scene changing musical interlude to a jazzy score having been in his mind here before it involved into that "well known Irish Song - Dirty old Town".

I'll send you some pictures if you want. It's not changed a huge amount since then, It's still a thousand ft hill of mainly farmland and it's still technically in Cheshire.

I wouldn't really have wanted to corrupt this thread with what has been a well discussed thread elsewhere but as both Jim and Ewan have become an aspect of it I thought I'd chip in. On my limited recordings of MacColl there are some aspects I'm not keen on but remembering that this was a man who was firstly an actor the use of some strange accents to put over a performance is understandable.

Widening the view to the likes of Jamie Foyers, My Old Man, The Joy of Life and Tim Evans my view is we're into the realms of a giant. No criticicsm, spiteful or considered, is ever going to shake me from that belief.