Whitchurch Morris – June 2016
The Whitchurch Morris Men – It’s Where It’s At
By the time you’ve read this, we will have had May Day, May Day bank holiday Lithuania, Leeds Dales Tour and be on the Thaxted Meeting, so what’s left?
We’re still packing it in, in a busy Spring with the regional Joint Morris Organisation (JMO), tour of Letchworth on the 11th June plus a wedding and the Edlesborough Charity Carnival on the 2nd July. There’s our Tuesday night programme for the month of June :
7th June; The Grand Junction Arms at Bulbourne with the St Alban’s Morris
14th June; The White Swan at Whitchurch
21st June; The Plough at Cadsden
28th June; The Rose and Crown at Wingrave
A return invitation from St Albans finds us at the Lower Red Lion in Fishpool Street in the city on the 27th June which brings me on to other events you might like to visit. Staying in St Albans, the first Wednesday evening in July on 6th has the now traditional St Michael’s Street Folk evening. It’s free so to find out more, follow this link: www.stmichaelsfolkevening.org.uk
The 18th June sees the annual election of the Mayor of Ock Street in Abingdon and is hosted as usual by those pop video stars from last year, the Abingdon Morris; www.abingdonmorris.org.uk/mabmockst.htm (Stealing Sheep; Apparition).
Something you might have seen fleetingly on TV was the first broadcast advertising campaign of Black Farmer. Lasting either 30 seconds or the full 2 minutes you’ll see that he’s enlisted the help of Dartmoor Border Morris to bring him luck. It’s available on Youtube if you missed it. We Are The Beat.
On the 7th May, the Daily Telegraph published a little article called “March of the Morris Women”. It states that from research over the last 2 years, more than 50% of the new dancers are women and that Morris Men could soon be in the minority. In the end though, it doesn’t really matter, as long as you’re having fun.
And finally, The Hairy Bikers’ series “The Pubs That Built Britain” was aired on BBC 2 during April and their visit to the Royal Standard was transmitted on the 27 April in the episode called the Home Counties.
So how did our St George’s Day of Dance go? Brilliantly is the answer. There is so much to tell you that this little missive could hardly do it justice, so you’ll have to come and have a go next year on the 22 April 2017. Two little girls danced their legs off till mum and dad said it was time for home. Then there were 5 big girls who’d left significant others at home with the children so they could enjoy and evening of dance and out of the whole event we got 4 new dancers – result.
Wassail
John King
WMM
