All four of the essays are more concerned with experiences in 'A New Land' than they are with the idea of borders being crossed. The first and longest of these is by Mike Yates, which the pre-publicity had told us would be about his Appalachian collecting experiences. Titled 'On Collectors and Collecting', at least half of it is about his and others' experiences in England. It contains a good deal of interesting material - though perhaps not as coherently edited as it might have been. And yet, clearly, there were people around who continued the tradition.
Social conditions change.
Just as past generations relied upon the printed broadsides for the texts of their folk songs, it could be that today's singers will learn their tradition from recordings such as these. Actually it's about the Nordic emigrations into the Midwest. The best of the written material in the package, in my view. Lastly, we have a short extract from Shirley Collins's forthcoming autobiography 'America Over the Water' - the story about Lomax's attempts at recording an Old Regular Baptist meeting in Kentucky, which I imagine will be familiar to most MT readers. Given that each gets only a 40mm wide column, they do a pretty fair job.