"In the filthy attic of a two-storey bungalow, set amongst the industrial wastes of Barnsley, Burland's official biographer, and part time traditional singer, Arthur Parrott, surrounded by sly-eyed mutant mice and countless aged tomes, (the famed and feared Necronomicon of the Mad Abdul al Hazarad and the journals of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, all redolent of mildew) focuses his waning powers to the task of remembering and regurgitating all that has gone before ....."

Even as a schoolboy, Dave and an acoustic guitar (borrowed) managed to incense the headmaster, who gave him a sound thrashing (leggo, you bounder) for the grave offence of interrupting the headmaster's lesson with a spirited rendition of "I know the Lord laid his hand on me" from the next classroom.

The world of work was a necessary fill in by day until the night when Dave became the lead vocal in the Riversiders Skiffle group. Being a bank clerk was not without its challenge, however: trying not to sing in those hallowed bankers' halls was often more than a body could bear, the branch manager being heard to say that he could quite like Burland if he would only stop singing "Danny Boy".

In l961 Burland left the bank and became a policeman for a period of seven years. Without doubt he would have become Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis had he not discovered folk music and folk clubs, in l962. Work and performing sat uneasily side by side for the next seven years or so until, in 1968, Burland became a self unemployed musician.

For the next 31 years Burland performed all over the world, mainly in a solo capacity but with occasional forays into team handed music making, with groups sporting promising names such as Hedgehog Pieand the Lost Nation Bandand latterly a blues and rock and roll band, Shagpile. There have been about eight solo albums, two with other people and quite a few session appearances: Richard Thompson, Nic Jones, Mike Harding, Albion Band, Sid Kipper and many more too numerous to remember.

I had occasion to ask him quite recently, on reflection how he thought it had gone. "It's hard to tell," he said, "I think folk music has ruined my life". As he appeared to be talking himself into one of his truculent turns, I hurriedly made my goodbyes and left.