Hello Jag

Speaking for myself, I don't know where Laycock would fit in, or even whether he would on some definitions of 'folk'. Do we have to ask what Laycock's relationship to the means of production distribution and exchange were?

I'm bouncing ideas around and learning from the discussion.

And there are questions to be asked about whether even being a 'ploughboy' (an occupation that appears to post-date the use of oxen drawn ploughs) was 'merely manual'. Presumably some sort of knowledge of what to do when and why and about animal husbandry and so on was needed.

What I do feel is that Laycock and his like are important in the social history of music. And interesting for all sorts of reasons. I'm not really about keeping people in or out, and I'm not sure whether doing this just ends up producing a distorted view of the history of music. Which is something that works like Roud's help to guard against.