Shirley Collins: ‘When I sing I feel past generations standing behind me’

Shirley Collins is one of the great voices of British folk music. Ahead of a star-studded celebration to mark her 80th birthday, she looks back on a remarkable careerLewes, East Sussex, is a lovely, slyly rebellious town. Pretty shopfronts and streets mask its political history: Thomas Paine wrote his first pamphlet here demanding better rights for workers; Irish Easter Rising revolutionaries were interned in its prison and Lewes Bonfire remains a heartland of anti-establishment fervour every No