The Lost Folk: From the Forgotten Past to the Emerging Future of Folk

The Lost Folk is an exceptionally thoughtful and beautifully written celebration of the creative power that lives and breathes within our communities, in the form of folk art and traditions. And it is a timely reminder that it is incumbent on us to ensure their future.

Erudite, questing and endlessly fascinating, this is the book that British folk has long needed. Essential reading.

The Lost Folk is a splendid museum full of strange and wonderful things. Not just a book, an expertly curated assembly of delights.

A lively, personal and deeply researched account of Folk, ancient, modern and future. Lally Macbeth hunts down, collects, participates in and really cares about the things she writes about, this is the definitive, comprehensive read.

Shows that our folk heritage – past and present – is so much more than Morris Dancing, Cheese Rolling and finger-in-the-ear sea shanties. In this highly readable and personable book packed with fascinating people, places, objects and customs, Lally’s breadth of research takes in the origins of model villages, the meaning of being a ‘chime child’, the history of Mummers' plays, an annual tradition in which clowns paint their faces on eggs and the adventures of the 1930s Surrey-based Ferguson Gang, who secretly raised money for heritage sites at risk of disappearing and sent their ‘loot’ attached to a live goat!

Contrary to popular thinking, Folklore is never old: it just has an age of appreciation behind it. Lally has brought us some of the freshest reimaginings of why customs and folk heritage is so relevant and important for today. A bold look at eccentric identities in a delightfully penned appreciation of our intangible folk cultures.