NORMA WATERSON MBE, one of the country’s finest, most emotive and versatile singers has died of pneumonia aged 82. Born in Hull in 1939, she was orphaned early and raised by grandmother Eliza Ward.

The Watersons’ first album Frost and Fire changed British folk music forever. It came out in 1965, the year I first heard the group at a Daily Worker fundraiser — just one year before the Worker would become today’s Morning Star.

The Watersons’ musical history was always closely rooted in radical socialism. Granddad, from who the Watersons learned so many songs, was on the Jarrow March. Norma, sister Lal and brother Mike all sang along with him around the fire in their Hull home. Grandma Eliza of Irish and Gypsy descent also gave Norma both traditional songs and robust singing voice.

In the 1960s after a brief period as a skiffle group the three, along with a cousin John Harrison, would become the rich harmony singing group the Watersons. They soon became the definitive custodians of traditional British song, gaining a worldwide reputation.

From the start the group made a conscious decision to sing only songs from Yorkshire along with traditional ceremonial songs from all over Britain.

First public performances were in Hull’s Jacaranda coffee bar in the late 1950s. Norma would recall: “We’d sing there three or four nights a week for five bob and all the coffee we could drink.” Later they opened their own Hull folk club, travelling miles to hear and book traditional singers.

On their first journey to London they sang three songs in the interval at the legendary Troubadour in Kensington (the first place where Bob Dylan performed in London in 1962). In the audience was Bill Leader of Topic Records. Impressed, he signed them to a three-album deal the next morning.

“We’ve recorded for Topic all our lives,” Norma would say, “Topic was close to the Communist Party via the Workers Music Association. The party played a pivotal role in the 1960s folk revival. This was the people’s music, the people’s fight.” Topic continues that work today.

The Watersons went their separate ways in 1968. Norma went to the Caribbean island of Montserrat as a radio DJ. She returned in the early 1970s and the group re-formed with leading folk guitarist and singer Martin Carthy replacing Harrison. Norma would marry Carthy in 1972.

The Watersons continued to record throughout the 1980s, before Norma, Martin and daughter Eliza formed the successful group Waterson:Carthy in the mid-1990s.

Norma’s repertoire was wider now with jazz classics adding to traditional British song. She sang with many other groups and won many accolades and awards but at the same time her health was failing.

Several decades ago daughter Eliza with Norma’s two grandchildren moved back to the North Yorkshire family home to help care for her ailing mother.

Anybody who was lucky enough to hear Norma, Martin and Eliza sing together at that time will know that Norma Waterson has left the rich treasury of British traditional song she helped uncover in the safe hands of her family.