Whenn I lived there Manchester Central Library used to have a large number of newspapers and other publications from the Cotton Famine and Chartist period, many of them carrying columns of songs and poems from textile workers, describing their work (or lack of it) and the conditions brought aabout by slave-like work, poor pay and harsh treatment
Alongside the poems of Waugh, Axon, Bamford and the other weaver poets, they proved an interesting contrast in style to the smaller collection of broadsides also carried by the library
These are proof positive of the creative skills of working people and the desire to put them down on paper.
I got the impression that the langage used in the songs sent in were not so much dialect, but an attempt to phonetically reproduce the words by people unfamiliar with putting pen to paper - the difference between genuine compositions and the pastiche of Dibden and the hacks

"who the "folk"
The BBC aren't generous enough to allow us ex-pats to listen to their programmes
I wonder if anybody records this, would they let me have a copy
Jim Carroll