Thread drift apology!

To some extend I agree with Jim about EFDSS. For quite a while it has been repeatdely re-inventing itself, most recently focussing on "folk arts", which apparently include writing and performing new "folk songs".

However it has also enhanced the Library and it has made a vast amount of material available online including the Carpenter stuff.

And I must disagree with Jim on this
> The ray of hope was when the plan was mooted to sell The House and move into somewhere more user-friendly - kicked to death by neanderthals

If those who killed the plan were "neanderthals" that includes me casting my vote!

The plan to sell Cecil Sharp House and use the cash to set up a new EFDSS HQ somewhere else would have made sense if that new HQ would have offered better facilities. But the intention seemed to be for it to accommodate just the offices and the Library: nothing else. No places where people could sing, dance or play music. That was why the plan was killed.

Back on topic (or closer anyway). After the discussion of The Coal Owner and the Pitman's Wife I'm still unclear how much of the song as printed in FSE was as originally written and how much, if at all, Bert doctored it besides (quite reasonably) putting together words from one source and tune from another. (And, having consulted my copy, I'm surprised to note that there are two more verses at the end than I have ever heard sung. Does anyone sing those two?)