I remember Ian Campbell one time told me about a gig he did with Ewan in Germany somewhere.

Anyway (happens to us all) Ewan was singing shoals of herring, and half way through the second verse, Ewan's brain went into reverse and he couldn't remember the next line. Ian was at the back of the hall - so he couldn't help him.

Luckily all the German audience knew the song and sung it for him. Shoals of herring is a song I love. I've sung it a thousand times in my front room, never in public.

I don't think its anything to do with the passing of time. Some of us have always loved encountering a song, and we have to have a go at learning it and singing it. Sometimes its only after you've learned it over a matter of weeks you realise - its not a song you can do.

I spent weeks once learning Thorneymoor Park, a song that was part of Carthy and Tony Rose's repertoire at the time. A number of times though, I did the line....I took me knife and I cut the buck's thoat...however I did it - it sounded too horrible to be music.

Some of us are just like that. We hear a song we like and we have a go at it. That's folksong for me. What its been to me since I was a kid . I'm 70, this month.