Harvey Kershaw was awarded the MBE in 1974 for his services to the writing, preservation and recitation of Lancashire Dialect and verse. His wife Mary, often sang whilst Harvey played the piano. Harvey came from Rochdale and Mary from Bacup in the Rossendale Valley. (KH Personal note: Both Harvey and Mary became personal friends during my time as sound archivist to the North West Sound Archive UK. Many of their recordings were recorded and preserved by the archive and are preserved along with work by other dialect writers and performers. We realised that Mary and Harvey were probably the last of the 'true' working-class dialect poets, writers, and singers with roots in 19th Romantic working-class movement of literature, self-help and genuine artistic expression.)