Secretly – Oh, so secretly and furtively! – I have always been fascinated by, and loved to watch, Morris Dancing. Why only last August, a good friend and I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day at the Towersey Festival near Thame – and, wherever we wandered severally, I could usually be found holed-up in a tent full of Morris Dancers!
But, let’s face it, Morris has – for those who consider themselves hip and where it’s at – the same kind of appeal as Baroque Music (which, of course, I also love!), that is to say, none at all. So those of us with the Morrisophage gene coursing thwackingly through our DNA learn to pretend!
A lucky trio of events led me to my first ever practice session with Glastonbury’s very own wielders of stick and drum, the wonderful Glastonbury Morris Dancers/Crow Morris.
In brief: Last Beltane, I saw the aforesaid troupe perform in the Abbey and was much taken with them; at Sunny and Ed Davidson’s lovely King Arthur pub gig (see my earlier post on this), I got up and danced frenetically and, at last Wednesday’s Pagan Moot, I met up with the leader of the Morris fraternity in Avalon, Daniel De La Bedoyere.
Invited to come along I must confess I ummed and awed a trifle. I was, let me be plain, extremely tempted – but, my lifelong lack of confidence in myself as a dancer came up for a shriek and a doom-ridden warning session, which can be summarised thusly: ‘Since you have all the grace of a rutting hippoptamus and, at nearly sixty, ought to know better than to foist your lack of balletic ability on the poor old public, do not go there!’
But, to put it bluntly, I have a tendency to ignore this Inner Nostradamus. The bugger often speaks in incomprehensible riddles anyway and its predictions are usually about as accurate as my parallel parking!
So, at seven of the clock, or thereabouts, I sauntered up my part of Widdershins Hill and found myself at the hall which held the dancing. I was a little – okay, a big! – nervous and unsure, had it in my mind, I guess, that I would be issued with hordes of incomprehensible instruction which, like Maths and Geography all those years ago, I would signally fail to understand; I also had the very real horror, given my inability to play hockey safely (or, indeed, at all), about the potential hazard of an Alienora and a stick!
But, Oh my goodness, it was a revelation of the best and most inspiring kind – and I absolutely loved every moment! Mark Silver showed me the moves and, to my delight, I was able – albeit somewhat shakily – to align with the rhythm, and, since the stick-work did not appear to need any kind of delicacy, I managed to clack away, mostly in time with my partner, without – and this is important – braining anyone present or knocking out the lights!
In short – which this post is not! – I had a wonderful time: Laughed and learned, bonded and bounced, stepped out to take photos and then joined in again for the Crow Morris – and, I have to say, was all aglow (or sweating like a carthorse, as it is also known) by the time the session finished.
Once back home again, and wildly awake and thoroughly enthused, I stayed up till half past arsehole watching innumerable videos of Morris Dancing troupes performing all over the land. Huge fun!
Many thanks to everyone there last night for making me feel so welcome! I loved it!
And so Ali finds yet another new passion three months before hitting sixty! Just goes to show that there’s life in the old B**** yet!
Crow Morris gets my vote!
Chronicles of an Orange-Haired Woman! 