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Trubshaw, Bob "Explore Folklore". Explore Books an imprint of Heart of Albion Press,  Loughborough, 2002. Pbk, (x), 196pp. Illus, bibliography, index. £9.95. ISBN 1-872883-60-3.

Bob Trubshaw may be known to some readers as the editor / publisher of the now defunct, but much missed "Mercian Mysteries" and "At the Edge" magazines. The latter was a pioneering attempt to draw together themes from archaeology, history and folklore studies with those from more "alternative" backgrounds, loosely termed "earth mysteries". This book, the first in a series, is a more permanent and extended exploration of those themes, focusing on what is termed "Folklore", although Bob correctly problematises the term itself.

It endeavours to bring to a wider readership the developments within more academic circles which considerably revise more established understandings about aspects of social practices, developments which sadly have yet to impact on the very people who should be most interested, the popular writers and practioners of "folk customs", due to both a compartmentalisation of knowledge and lack of mutual contact and understanding.

And in this I would argue Bob has done all concerned a great service in this first attempt. (And Bob is aware enough to welcome additional input for subsequent editions!). The first part of the book is concerned with a brief history of British folklore studies, which is swiftly followed by a deeper foray into the murky waters of theory. I suspect this attention to theory may have upset some people as it is a very neglected aspect of, among others, UFOlogy and Fortean studies, where much attention is given to the collection and interpretation of "data" without any real consideration as to what constitutes "data" and what are the contexts within which the data is evaluated and presented. Those of us more familiar with theory will, of course, be aware that no text is "innocent", no "data" untheorised, nothing should be taken at face value.

Yet, for a variety of reasons, British folklore studies has generally been left outside the academic arena and whilst this has left writers and researchers generally unaffected by the more tortuous soul-searching and critiques that their academic colleagues have suffered, it has also meant they are operating under the illusion that their work is free of theory. However, Bob has kindly provided a brief overview of the sort of themes and ideas that theoretically informed work in this area (done mainly in the USA) has covered so hopefully some practioners will start following up his leads (the bibliography is extensive and up-to-date).

Bob then looks at narrative,and beliefs in folklore and contemporary society. As Bob points out, most British writers have laboured under the assumption that folk practices were somehow ahistorical and fixed, emerging unscathed from a distant past. Sadly, modern historical research has shown that to be overwhelmingly false. Much that is promoted as being "timeless" can be shown to have originated in specific places and at specific times in the past couple of hundred years. This doesn't, of course, invalidate modern "revivals" and re-interpretations, all folk customs are subject to change over time, some die out, some are suppressed and new ones created.

Interestingly Bob incorporates subject matter more usually consigned to the "outside" as being important subject matter for folklore studies. For example he devotes a couple of chapters to a consideration to such phenomena as weather lore, ghosts, UFOs, fairies, Friend-of-a-friend tales and urban legends. He also suggests that present day researchers should be more attentive to collecting for posterity what people are doing now, to show how attitudes change (or stay the same) to all manner of subjects usually outside academic areas of research.

The last chunk of the book covers contemporary folk festivals and seasonal festivities, folk dancing and song, and folk crafts. These chapters combine some historical research on particular festivities with a more wide-ranging look at what constitutes "folk craft". This latter is something virtually every reader could contribute to. As Bob points out the 1930-50's was a great time for DIY mechanics, radio assemblers and other "hobbies" which have almost died out except amongst those driven to do so through necessity due to mass-production. He even mentions such activities (mainly young male oriented) such as the painting of model soldiers and assembling plastic aircraft from kits (something which I much enjoyed when I were a lad), yet these have mainly died out - except for participants in role-playing and D'n'D aficionados. 

Equally home crafts have gone through fashions - who remembers collecting pebbles from beaches and then tumbling them in little rotating devices which produced, well pebbles from beaches. Usually one varnished then to make them look any good and then stuck then in to mounts to make utterly unwearable "jewellery". Yet unless people make the effort to collect such "data" - and here is where the theoretical informing plays a part, by making people aware of what choices they make and why, when considering the object/s of their research - this will be lost on future generations. (Although one can wonder if they'll be any the worse for not knowing!!)

There's very little to criticise with this book. The cover probably looked better on screen than came out in the printing, the author's name is totally obscured in dim lighting. There are a few typos scattered around but nothing that a quick revision won't take care of. One glaring omission regarding source material and theoretical work is that there's no mention of "History Workshop". As a sometime attendee and subscriber (though i had to stop when it got too expensive in the early 90's) I'm surprised not to see references to articles in the excellent journal. The History Workshop team were also responsible for compiling and writing a series of books which would have thought were germane to this subject matter. And how one can write about modern folk singers and miss out Leon Rosselson and Roy Bailey, Christy Moore, The Levellers and Chumbawumba, I don't know. But as Bob says, this book is based on his experiences and enthusiasms and knowledge. (And my comments are based on mine!)

All of which is pretty inconsequential when compared to the achievement of writing such a good book. It does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it in an accessible and well-written manner. The theoretical material is easy enough to understand and one certainly doesn't need to be a specialist in this area to
read it.

Splendid book

8/10

Richard Alexander