I really don't see much reason in pursuing this song other than to prove Bert a chalatan - that maybe worth the effort to some...
We have established that it is traditional and that it possibly had it's roots in England, just as we established that Bert's statements on 'The Coal Owner and the Pitman's came from a collier rather than from Bert's invention
There will be no evidence that The Weaver originated on a broadside - that evidence doesn't exist for any of our folk songs
THat Bert as a singer may or may have added to it with verses of his own is surely immetarial?
I seriously hope that such as an important influence in my life as Bert was doesn't end up as MacColl has, as someone who is dug up regularly and rewarded for his work with a regular ritual kicking
Surely one sacrificial lamb is enough for people who get pleasure from that sort of thing!

Much of this argument has been little more than academic shadow boxing - the actual songs and singing has taken second place.
I spent the week before last as part of a week-long annual school which was set up 48 years ago in memory of a traditional piper (and singer) to promote the teaching and passing on traditional song and music
It has proved an essential part of the massive rise in the fortunes of Irish music that has occured here - that music has now been guaranteed at least another two generation-worth of future

Song hasn't fared quite as well, partly because the Traditional singers involved at the beginning, Tom Lenihan, Martin Reidy, Straight Flanagan, Nora Cleary, Katie Droney.... and the rest (all personal friends or acquaintances, to one degree or another) went and died before their influence began to kick in.

I decided some time ago that most of the rest of my conscious life would be dedicated to promoting people like these with the assistance of the works of people who have gone before - MacColl and Lloyd feature strongly in my intention.
Any examples I have of any of these generous enthusiasts`and the singers who left is such a rich legacy I intend to pass on to those who wish to avail of it
I can't think of anything more positive I can do with my time at present

During the six daily workshops at the Clancy school I met a number of enthusiastic singers who were happy to take up my offer of recordings and information - I made a similar offer on this thread some time ago and was deafened by the silence of the response.
I have opened a Dropbox and am regularly circulating material to those who gave me their contact number.
Once again I make the offer here
Anybody who wants to listen to the work of MacColl via 'The Song Carriers' or Bert with his magnificent 'Songs of the People' or 'Folk Song Virtuoso', or selections of traditional singing from source singers is welcome to be linked to the Dropbox, which will be filled and regularly replaced for as long as I have time to do so (we really do have a lot of material here)

I'm around till Sunday, when we are going off for a few days to celebrate(?) my being another year another year older and deeper in frustration.
Then those who seem happy to knock Ewan and Bert without having heard what they actually had to say or a consign our the role of our traditional singers to customers or parrots can hear what they had to say and sing up close

If some people consider my attitude immovable or unreasonable, I should think carefully about how much time and effort has been put in here by people who have bent over backwards to show that all previous folk scholarship has been based on starry-eyed naivety, or by the efforts of people to show that untalented bad poets (hacks) were the authors of our folk songs rather than those who sang them and passed them on
Off to link up a few more requests
Jim