Foreword
by John Arlott
There have been few happier literary coincidences than, about twenty years ago, when the B.B.C. wanted to record country dialect and songs, Bob Copper was able to undertake it.

Preface
Have you ever spent an evening in early summer sipping ale on a wooden bench outside a country pub, while the sun filters its fading glory through the tracery of a flowering apple tree and the old man at your side spins yarns of his early manhood?