And yet the culture was rich and distinctive, Brian - fiercely so - and the stories of seasonal carol singing around the farms & old rural mining villages with 4-part harmonies and home-made one-string cigar box fiddles were the stuff of genuine wonder. I was foiled in my attempts to link it to Billy Harrison's carol tunes of Yorkshire though - he said it was all hymn-book stuff. How amazing it must have sounded though!

Was folk song ever such a big part of the culture as a whole? We're talking about something very rich and independent in terms of language (Pitmatic) and politics and community, even Rapper and Clog Dancing, of which my maternal grandfather was champion in the Chester-le-Street tradition but no mention in the family was ever made of folk song - except one day my old mum was round I'd just bought the Bob Robert's Songs from the Sailing Barges LP band popped it on thinking she might like it's salty flavours. With respect of Bell Bottom Trousers and While Gamekeepers Lie Sleeping she said 'Your father used to sing those.' He passed, aged 30, in 1963. I often wonder how he came by them...