Peter Kennedy: A personal memoirAuthor(s): ROY PALMERSource: Folk Music Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2008), pp. 487-488Published by: English Folk Dance + Song SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25654160 .

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OBITUARIES 487

knack of creating serendipity and coincidences; for example, just by asking someone

for directions he'd find himself talking to a musician, and that would lead to others in

the area. His charming and polite manner was usually enough to overcome the initial

curiosity, suspicion, or shyness of country people, themselves always courteous. He

acted the role of someone very interested in the old songs and tunes, but would have

'heard only parts' of the ones he was hoping to find, and 'wondered if you've ever heard

one that starts like this?' He helped things along by perhaps singing the first line or

two, or playing a tune on his fiddle. Sometimes he'd play back the recording as a way of

encouraging the performer. We'd enjoy tunes ourselves while driving along by lilting (or

'diddling') them to mouth music.

When Peter was in the South Hams area he'd stay at my parents' house in the isolated

village of Kingston. At that time he was compiling the first of the Fiddler's Tune-Books

and would spend hours playing over tunes on his fiddle in order to decide which to

include, then checking over his written music. From listening in, my tune list eventually included most of the G/D tunes in the book. There were enough musicians in the

village, too, to provide a variety of floor spots at a barn dance recorded by the BBC for

the Village Barn Dance series, with music provided by Peter's band, the Haymakers. When I reached the age of eighteen in December 1951, the time had come for

National Service. I didn't go until March 1952 and, in fact, stayed for three years as

a 'regular'. Stationed in Wiltshire, I was able to keep in touch with Peter at events in

the area and in London. I spent my demob leave back on the road with Peter on his

collecting trip through Scotland and Orkney during the summer of 1955. By then he was recording for the BBC Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme. That, of course, is another story

- and more treasured memories.

BOB RUNDLE Camborne, Cornwall

1 Wyn Humphreys was a guest musician on this occasion. The photo was probably taken at the

barn dance recorded in Sidbury, Devon. Wyn was the headmaster of the local school and was known for the local traditional performers and dances he discovered in Sidbury.

Peter Kennedy: A personal memoir

I was an avid listener to Peter Kennedys pioneering radio series featuring traditional

singers in the 1950s but I did not meet him until 1975, shortly after his rich and massive anthology, Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, came out. By this time I was aware

of rumours that Peter had asked his informants to sign papers assigning copyright to him and that he required payment from anyone wishing to reproduce the songs. I came face to face with this myself in 1987 when Peter claimed a payment of ?200 for four

songs I had included in Everyman's Book of English Country Songs, published eight years earlier, on the grounds that the singers had indeed assigned the copyright to him. In the

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488 FOLK MUSIC JOURNAL

case of three of these I had drawn on versions recorded or noted from the singers before

the dates when they had signed for Peter; the fourth was afterwards, but I had clearance

from both collector and record company. I was fortunate enough to have an eminent legal friend who took an interest in such

matters, and I asked what he thought. He replied that he could not formally give me

an opinion unless I went through due channels and paid a substantial fee, but that he

was prepared to comment informally. What he said is worth quoting because it remains

valid. The words of songs themselves carry no copyright capable of assignment so long as

they are purely oral. The same goes for tunes. The singer therefore has nothing to assign; a singer is of course free to refuse to sing or to record unless s/he is paid; but the fee is for

the performance, not for the copyright. There is copyright in sound recordings, vested

in the maker, not in the performer, but it restricts only the reproduction of the sounds

recorded. It is improbable that the law recognizes any copyright in the bare transcription of somebody else's words, spoken or sung. Some original element must be contributed

to create copyright. However, any copyright that might exist in a transcription -

say because it's edited - is only infringed if you copy it. You cannot infringe it by going back

to the same source.

I conveyed these views to Peter, and heard no more of his request for payment. Some

years later, after my wife and I had moved to Gloucestershire, we were walking one

summer Sunday in the Cotswolds. As we dropped through a beech wood into the

narrow Sheepscombe Valley we heard music, then saw morris dancers in action in front

of a honey-stoned pub. And there on a bench sat Peter. It is a tribute to his equable nature that we were able to resume conversation as though we'd never had a difference

in the world. In fact, we went on to become friends for the first time.

In 2006, Pat and I stayed on the north Norfolk coast at a bed and breakfast picked out of a guidebook. In conversation with our host it emerged that his father had

been one of Peter's informants: Phil Hamond, of Morston, whose versions of 'The

Candlelight Fisherman' and 'The Foggy Dew' are in Peter's book. On returning home

I took the opportunity to telephone Peter to enquire about his health, which I knew

was problematic, and to tell him of the meeting. Over half a century after his visit to

Norfolk he instantly recalled Captain Hamond, who, he said, was bilingual in standard

English and the local vernacular. No such joy on the health front: Peter was clearly close to the end of his life. He was bleak but stoical. After I'd put the phone down I felt

how inadequate my stumbling words of commiseration had been, so I sat and wrote a

card expressing my admiration of Peter's immense contribution and my thanks for his

kindness to me. I greatly value those years of friendship when Peter's enthusiasm for folk

music was undimmed despite his declining years; and I thank his wife, Beryl, too, for

her acerbic and iconoclastic sense of humour which failed to conceal a heart of gold.

ROY PALMER Malvern

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