Recap

1 A helpful poster early in the thread mentioned a thesis by David Hillery, which is very interesting. Hillery compares the work of several 'traditional' singers, including Pardon.

I shall have more to say on this later. However, at one point, he shows awareness of the issues I raised at the outset, namely the biased ways that Pardon and his life are sometimes presented. Hillery's point is a wider one. He homes in on the way the places where folk singer live tend to be presented. He thinks that these places tend to be described as isolated. He thinks this is because it suits the agenda in terms of something like cut off from the wider world, more likely to be unaffected by outside influences.

This is exactly what I thought (as mentioned above) when I found within the output of the Pardon industry (look that word up in a dictionary if you find its use here odd) assertions that Knapton was in the early years of Pardon's life 'cut off'. The 'evidence' for this was that the roads were not 'made up' (made of tarmac?). Quite apart from the fact that we had a thriving economy before tarmac was invented, so the idea is itself very very odd, those who came up with it and even published it seem not to have done their background research. This would have demonstrated, as I said, that Knapton had a railway station in the 19th century, serving both passengers and goods.

But I was pleased to see that I am not the only one who looks back at the literature produced in the Revival and more generally on folk and sees how biased and selective its reporting can be.

2 I double checked on Pardon's early links with the Methodist chapel in Knapton. Shepherd's history of the place lists several names as attenders at a youth group there. Pardon's name appears along side others; the list seems to have come from old records, and it includes other residents born at around the same time.

Knapton during Pardon's time experienced all sorts of music and culture, including amateur Shakespeare, entertainments with wind-op gramophones etc.

3 If I remember aright, even the claim that Pardon's grandfather learned his songs from broadsides has been challenged on this thread, and this comes from Pardon himself in an early interview. The grounds for the challenge was itself potentially dubious, claiming that the family were 'hoarders' which for me evokes images of people with some sort of clinical condition. However, it seems that Pardon himself stated that he believed that the broadsides were thrown out when there was a clear out after his grandfather's death.

4 It has been explained that the importance of Pardon comes because he learned his songs the traditional way. Of course, he didn't learn them in quite a traditional way, and I think Hillery also picks up on this. The key here is Pardon's assertions that he did not sing the songs. Singing the songs might be viewed as a key part of learning in the traditional way.

5 @ Steve Shaw: This thread is not meant to be a 'love in' in praise of Walter Pardon. It is meant to take a look at the way he has been presented via sleeve notes, web pages, lectures, etc etc and to try to sort out fact from opinion.

6 Yes, I am an anonymous poster. Deal with it.