“I can look down and after song number three without saying anything I can see them; and they're going: 'Say, can't the bugger talk?'”
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The sequence of events necessitating this response was this: on February 4th, John Stanford posted a message on Topica, asking where he could find the French lyrics of two of Jake's songs. Gordon Tennent, Webmaster of the jakethackray.com site replied, pointing him to the lyrics on his site. Two days later, Edmund Chattoe posted a further message in this thread, in which he made certain allegations regarding the 'appropriation' of material from his web site. There has been considerable discussion of this matter, and the committee feels that it is now in possession of all the facts. Here they are: when the group was first formed, very little of Jake's work was available on CD. For most of his songs, the only way that his lyrics could be accessed and transcribed was from hard-to-find vinyl recordings or amateur recordings of Jake's live performances. The lyrics on Edmund's 'Unofficial Jake Thackray Site' were transcribed and contributed by people who owned these recordings, and the contributors were credited on the site. This site was, at that time, the only internet resource for those interested in Jake's work. Independently of Edmund's site, a discussion had started on the BBC's H2G2 site. This grew up around an article concerning Jake and his work, contributed to the site by our own Buskingbob, now a regular contributor to this group. The idea of forming a group of Jake enthusiasts was first mooted on the H2G2 site, between some who had found the discussion direct and some who had arrived there via a link on Edmund's site. Edmund kindly offered to provide a mailing list of interested parties who had contacted him via his site for information on Jake. This list formed the core of the original group, though only a small proportion of the current membership arrived by that route. From the outset, Edmund's role, both in assisting in the formation of this group and in collecting, preserving and making available valuable information about Jake's work over many years, has been fully acknowledged within this group. It is not the case that song lyrics were appropriated from his site without permission. They were provided as a zip file from the files area of the Yahoo! group with his full permission and cooperation, and transferred to the jakethackray.com site when it became available. As Jake's work was reissued on CD, largely thanks to pressure from this group, it became obvious that there were discrepancies between these lyrics and the versions now on release, and most were re-transcribed from the newly available recordings by Gordon, Keith Donovan and others. The lyrics that now appear on jakethackray.com are the latest versions. The only person in the group who has ever suggested closing down Edmund's site and transferring the content to jakethackray.com is Edmund himself. There are messages in existence dated as long ago as October 2002 (quoted below) in which he proposes this. 'It's great to see that my rickety old page may have started something and that so many other people are "running with it", particularly that we can let Jake know that some people really value what he's done. When I get time, I may chat to www.jakethackray.com and just move the whole site over. It seems daft to duplicate and he obviously has more time for "tarting up" than I do. I could then concentrate on doing decent scans of all the stuff I have already been sent: about which I feel horribly guilty!' Neither Gordon nor any other member of the committee or group as a whole has ever suggested that Edmund's site should be closed, nor do we feel that the two sites are in any way in competition. There is room for these sites to co-exist, along with the others that will inevitably spring up as the revival of interest in Jake's work gains pace, and to exchange information and link to each other (We have always had a link to Edmunds' site on JT.com). It is quite usual for non-copyright material from web sites to be reproduced all over the web, and it can only benefit Jake's work and memory if this is the case. The two sites are very different in content and style, with jakethackray.com offering a good deal of content that is not available on the UJTW, including a means for members to communicate via the bulletin board, while the UJTW offers scans of concert programmes, and other material not available on JT.com. It has always been the intention of the committee that visitors to the JT.com site should be made aware of Edmund's role in the preservation and dissemination of information regarding Jake's work, and his contribution is already acknowledged on the site. We have written to Edmund asking him in what way he would like to see his contribution further acknowledged. We do not feel that the forum was an appropriate place for Edmund to air his dissatisfactions, particularly in view of the fact that he had not first taken his concerns to Gordon or to any other member of the committee. His allegations, against Gordon in particular, were unfounded and damaging, and have caused understandable distress and anger to those concerned. His email was a complete surprise, especially in the light of the fact that previous communications had been generally cordial. We would like to state here our full support for Gordon and all those involved in the creation and running of the jakethackray.com site, and our gratitude for the considerable effort they have expended on behalf of this group. We would also like to reiterate our appreciation of Edmund's efforts on Jake's behalf over many years, and we hope that we can all now put this unpleasant episode behind us, and concentrate on what unites us as a group - our mutual respect and admiration for Jake Thackray and his work. Phil McGinity On behalf of The Jake Thackray Project Committee |