Sorry last post has a number of 'typos'.

I shall now post a transcript, copied from Mudcat, of an interview with Walter Pardon. I don't know the date of it, which would be helpful. Nor do I have any information about the context, such as how far the contents had or had not been rehearsed formally or informally. My interpretation of this text is that it demonstrates leading questions, the use of somewhat limiting 'either or' questions, and that there is a clear sense of the answer that the interlocutors want.

J C When you're singing at a club or a festival, who do you look at, what do you see when you're singing?

W.P   I don't see anything

J C You don't look at the audience?

W P No, that's why I like a microphone: I'd rather stand up in front of a microphone, than anything, 'cause that's something to look at. That's what I like, this sort of thing in front; you can shut the audience out.

J C   So what do you see when you're….?

W P   Actually what I'm singing about, like reading a book.
You always imaging you can see what's happening there, you might as well not read it.      

`P Mac   So you see what you're singing about.

W P   Hmm.

P Mac   How do you see it; as a moving thing, as a still thing, or… moving?

W P   That's right.
'Pretty Ploughboy' was always ploughing in the field over there, that's were that was supposed to be.

J C So it's that field, just across the way?

W P That's right?

J C   How about 'Van Dieman's Land' then?

W P   Well, that's sort of imagination, what that was really like, in Warwickshire, going across to Australia, seeing them chained to a harrow and plough, that sort of thing, chained hand to hand, all that.
You must have imagination to see it all, I think so, that's the same as reading a book, you must have imagination to see where that is, I think so, well I do anyhow.

P Mac   But you never shut your eyes when you're singing, do you?

W P   No, no.

P Mac   So if you haven't got a microphone to concentrate on, if you are singing in front of an audience, where do you look?

W P   Down my nose, like that (squints).

P Mac   Yes, you do, yes, that's right, you do (laughter)

W P   That is so, have you noticed that?

P Mac   Yes

J C   Do the people in the songs that you sing, do they have their own identity, or are they people you know, or have known in the past?

W P   Their own identity, imagine what they look like

J C   You imagine what they look like?

W P   That's right, yeah.

J C   And when you sing the song, they're the same people every time; they look the same every time?

W P   That's right, yeah, that's right.
All depend what it's about, or the period.

J C   And they would dress in the period…?

W P   That's right, yeah.

J C   So where would you put 'The Pretty Ploughboy', what sort of period would you….?

W P   Lord Nelson's time.

J C   So they'd be wearing….?

W P   Yeah, in the last century.

P Mac Then what about a song like 'The Trees They do Grow High' or 'Broomfield Hill'?

W P   Oh, that'd go back, really, farther still, buckled shoes, that sort of thing (laughs).
That is right though.