These remarkable recordings were made in the early 1950s. They were instigated by Robert Forrester and Norman Alford who, while cycling around the Cumbrian countryside, sought out some of the old boys who sang and played traditional music in the local pubs. The recordings, made in the pubs, on a direct cut 78 rpm acetate machine, then lay undiscovered in Carlisle Record Office for nearly thirty years! Now we are able to cast the spotlight on a way of life and a kind of music that is rarely heard today. There are local hunting songs as well as haunting ballads, a comic song and traditional tunes, each introduced by its performer in their true Cumberland dialect