CAST your minds back to your schooldays, to those teachers you would occasionally get who on the outside appeared fearsome yet in reality everyone in the class loved.

This thought flashed through my mind as Peggy Seeger charmed and cajoled an audience at the library theatre.

At 77 Peggy remains a feisty character. She sat in the audience to listen to the excellent support act David Metcalfe and then jumped up at the end of his set to tell all those sitting at the back she expected them to move forward for the main event.

Then second song in we were being given a chorus to learn and urged to sing up.

But don’t get me wrong, it was all great fun.

Peggy retains a remarkable singing voice at times capable as she put it “of cutting cheese” and at others deep and resonant.

Then there is her considerable musical ability. Banjo, guitar, box banjo, piano and the wonderful sounding auto harp – she played them all with remarkable flair.

From her most famous song Gonna Be An Engineer to obscure 19th century folk songs we were given a glimpse into her remarkable musical catalogue.

There were protest songs, comedy songs, readings and even a communal poem. It was an interesting, unusual evening – and on reflection, a rather special one.