"was not just the residents of the club but all the singers to which the policy applied, is that correct or incorrect, Jim?"
May have ben fifty yars ago Dick - I wasn't around at the time
I fist attended the Singers in November 1963 (the day after Kennedy was shot).
Have to say there wasn't much sign of it then, but certainly, when I began to get down to London more often a few years later, it was as Peggy said it was, for the residents only.
I seem to remember that Long John Baldry had been a guest at the singers around then - I know Ewan admired him as a singer.
As I say - in my time it was never a rule, it was a guide.
I would have no great objection if it was compulsory for all singers in the very early days, Ewan and Bert were trying to get the British repertoire off the launching pad, but once it was established there was room to relax.
I found it interesting to read how the audiences dropped off when the club became a policy one, then built up again.
I remember being torned away from The Pindar of Wakefield because there was no room and having to queue at other times.
I queued for an hour to get into see Ewan and Peggy at Samson and Barlow's in Liverpool and had to book in advance when they came to Manchester.
Whenever I saw them at The singers, they played to more-or-less full houses. The Singers - a sign for me that whatever they did before I saw them, it seems to have worked, which seems to contradict any claim that a policy club drove people away.
If you say that things have changed and it wouldn't work today, fine, it seems to make my point that the revival has divorced itself from folk music. unless, of course, you are arguing that folk song no longer has a relevance - different argument altogether.
Jim Carroll