The gym slips reminded me of my own garb as a girl. I do feel that Hislop was rather dismissive of Sharp's folk song collection. He stated that it wasn't possible to trace the origins of the 5000+ songs and many local singers couldn't have known if their efforts were old or fairly recent, derivative or 'pure'. But surely that's the whole point of folk songs - they evolve and merge, like living organisms. Just look at the 'Jones's Ale Was New' thread. There's a possibility that it derives from a really quite ancient ditty, or perhaps not... Hislop's view that all this ruralism was and is a figment of the imagination isn't strictly true either. I can assure him that the picture-box countryside and way of life is alive and well here in deepest Norfolk. Our very small cohesive village hasn't much changed in 500 years. No urbanisation here.