On a visit to the Cecil Sharp House library earlier this month, I came across a rather wonderful book called The Sounds of History: Songs and Social Comment by Roy Palmer. I must have been in something of a naughty-minded disposition, as I quickly found my way to the chapter on ‘The Sexes’ – a discourse on intimacy as portrayed in traditional song – and was delighted to learn of a sadly forgotten pastime known as “night visiting”, a hobby so popular that it seems to have become a genre of its own.
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