What has been your most memorable gig?

Julie Matthews: Probably playing to 25,000 people at Cropredy with our Blue Tapestry band.

It was just one of those gigs where all the stars lined up, each member of the band played their socks off, the audience were amazing, the sound was superb, the sun was setting over the Oxfordshire hills and we were in musical heaven.

Chris While: When I was a young singer, one of my influences was Judy Collins.

A few years ago in Australia we played a concert at Port Fairy Festival and sang Amazing Grace with her in front of 3,000 people.

When she smiled at me and passed me the mic to sing the second verse I just beamed.

Do you miss the camaraderie of the Albion days?

J: We still see everyone from our Albion line-ups, in fact we work every December with Chris Leslie in our Christmas band St Agnes Fountain.

We travel with a lovely team on the road now so we're not short of group laughs.

What did it mean to you to win best folk duo at the BBC Folk Awards?

J: It was amazing. It was nice to take home an award but we've always said that the real awards come from the people who support our music year in year out.

C: We were sitting next to James Taylor, who I love. I had met him in the afternoon and he was so nice.

When I saw Barbara Dickson come on to the stage to present the best duo award I started to get very nervous as she is a close friend of mine and Julie's.

It was a very proud moment I can tell you.

What inspired you to become musicians when you were young?

J: I started playing guitar when I was about eight or nine, the first song I learnt was for my grandad called 'Beautiful Dreamer' and the first song I wrote about same age was 'Meet me at the Station'.

Then I got my first upright piano at 13. My dad and three pals carried that big old heavy thing up the stairs and into my bedroom. I've wrote a heap of songs in the years that followed on that old girl.

C: I remember sitting on the kitchen floor as a child with my back against the old washing machine singing The Young Ones to the rhythm of the washer.

My mum used to stand me on the table to sing to everyone.

When I was a teenager I went to a folk club in the area every night on my bike. The first folk song I learned was Copper Kettle from a Joan Baez album. Then I discovered Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny and the world exploded.

What do you make of the resurgence of folk music with bands like Bellowhead and Mumford & Sons being hugely popular?

J: It's brilliant. It's the cycle of acoustic music, something new comes along and brings with it a new following. It keeps the genre alive by breathing new life into it.

C: It's great to hear anything like that on the radio, it's almost impossible to reach that status from this genre.

We spent three weeks on the Radio 2 playlist this year and did live sessions on Weekend Wogan and Mark Radcliffe's brilliant folk show, that was fantastic.

- While and Matthews perform at Lymm Hotel next Thursday. Visit lymmfestival.org.uk