Doc Rowe

I'd like to acknowledge publicly the debt I owe to Doc Rowe, who remains one of the most inspirational fieldworkers I've ever had the pleasure to meet, as well as being thoroughly good company. He continues to add to one of the most important post-war collections and documentations of folklife in the British Isles, and long may he do so.

The photo was taken in Sheffield, 2007, and shows Doc (left) receiving the Coote Lake Medal from Professor Will Ryan, then President of the Folklore Society.

My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean Parody

I heard this from a classmate from Forest Hill in the early 1980s:

My granny went down to the cellar

To see where her gas-leak could be

She struck a match for to see better

Oh bring back my granny to me

The Old Owl

There was an old owl, lived in an oak

The more he saw, the less he spoke

The less he spoke, the more he heard

So take a tip from this wise old bird

- recorded from Howard Millen of Bethersden, Kent, 2007