Saddened to hear that Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool were unable to accept Fred's wishes of depositing his material and am horrified to hear that it is to be broken up. This confirms my own belief and decision not to deposit my archive with institutions - despite many requests and suggestions over the years. Currently, as age and infirmity is increasingly making me aware, I am attempting to slow down many of my activities and concentrate on making my collection accessible and sustainable – this is yet another warning call!
Deeply troubled, however, as I'm sure many of you are that his life's interest will be split up as he clearly intended it to be kept. Because of this, rather like knowing a performer's complete repertoire, I do feel it important that even if the material will no longer be accessible from one source, to know what was held. Could I suggest that a note [inventory?] be made of the items – particularly as they are removed – that, rather like the singer's repertoire at very least we would have an idea of the collection that Fred had; material that he considered and held dear.

Fred was a great friend and colleague and I do already have a discrete collection of his tapes in the archive that he deposited with me years ago. Could I request that any unique personal material – writings, memorabilia, scripts, programmes, any of his personal writings, 'rants and raves', recordings etc. be kept together and separately from anything that is published or might be commercially available elsewhere. My archive would be happy to keep this safe as a Fred McCormick section for future access or, indeed, if a relevant institution might be found later for it to be kept together. Did we try the Working Class Library in Salford, for instance?

Fred did have some rare material and I know received the late Keith Summer's record collection. I don't know whether they are so identified but again I anticipate, by breaking up this collection,we will have lost testimony and tribute to another great enthusiast and collector. I am often saddened to see items on EBay identified as being from the library of Hamish Henderson, Ewan MacColl, CECTAL, etc. it would be a sad day to see this happen with Fred's collection.