The three great Norfolk singers, Harry Cox, Sam Larner and Walter Pardon never met
Harry and Sam appeared on a film together in a beautiful little film, 'The Singer and the Song' but they were filmed separately

Walter constantly expressed his admiration for Sam and shared some of his songs
It was Walter who linked Sam's song, Butter and Cheese and All' with the local practice of men hiding up the chimneys to avoid the Press Gangs which raided the Norfolk villages during wartime looking for unwilling recruits

Walter shared the ability of a number of singers we recorded to 'see his songs' as he sang them
He provided descriptions of the characters in his songs and mentally dressed them in period costume
When he'd fininsed singin 'The Pretty Ploughboy' for us once, he pointed out of the window and said "He used to work in that field"
That appeared to be fairly common among singers from traditional singing backgrounds
Kerry Traveller, Mikeen McCarthy told us that singing a song was like sitting in a cinema watching a film"
Jim Carroll