On 11th November I presented at the Folk Song Conference held at Cecil Sharp House.

I spoke about the folk song recordings made by Tony Wales at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s. I acquired the recordings which were all recorded on reel-reel tape in the the 1990s, and part of the sales agreement was that I would make them available in the future, That I have done and they can be found on the Sussex Traditions website.  Look here: https://sussextraditions.org

I am satisfied with my presentation. I was within my 20 minute limit, I spoke clearly and at a good speed. There was a problem with some of the embedded sound files, they all finished about 10 seconds early.

Tony Wales wrote about Sussex and its traditions. He wrote for a public audience, which means that it does not necessarily have academic rigour. His writing often includes stories or comment without the evidence to back it up fully.

Tony was one of many collectors operating at that time in small localities such as Horsham where he lived. They were self-funding and often worked alone. Although their work may be flawed, we do owe them a huge debt: without them our knowledge, and in this case actual recordings of the singers would not have taken place and we would have been poorer for that.