Sorry my second sentence was garbled. I should have said 'certainly at the same hands AS other posters, who have complained about it.'

I know we seem to have had moderator approval to discuss MacColl generally on this thread, but I'm still on the book, because as I said, it throws up all sorts of questions - and contradictions.

While we are on the topic of 'source singers', something else in the book made me think.

Actually, if I am honest, I was a bit surprised to read Steve saying that traditional singers had 'preserved' the songs for us, as I had an idea that one thing we could look to Steve for was the use of documentary evidence to date the songs collected from such singers. And also, I understood that there is no evidence of some Child ballads having actually been sung, only documentary evidence?