Happy days. But the thing is that the old codgers around these days include a fair number who are essentially the same sort. People who learnt their songs from listening to other people singing them, and have some they learned as kids and have been carrying around in their heads or their notebooks.

As far back as Cecil Sharpe people were always saying they were collecting the last remnants from the last generation of real folksingers. And then another generation turns up, who end up looking and sounding not that different.