Morris dancing as seen by a morris dancer.
I've been morris dancing for nearly 40 years and will pass on dancing comments,
songs, music and other morris dancing views from my dancer perspective.
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What made you join the “Morris”?
Ask a hundred morris men and you will get 100 different answers. In the series that follows I will try and give you a flavour of what a dozen or so have said to me over the years.
You will be amazed at some of them, others will strike a chord with you. Yep, the very reasons you think you could or could not become a morris dancer are in these very articles!
I have done morris dancing all over the world, far flung places like Latvia and Mongolia to dear old Portslade, but travel was not why I joined, that was the last thing on my mind. I was still in my early 20's and single.
I was playing darts with some of my mates at the Juggs Arms, Kingston (near Lewes) when this noisy rabble in strange costumes muscled up to the bar to buy pints of ale. They then went outside and stared dancing, bit like a swipe from a tango. Anyway we dragged ourselves outside and watched for a while then went back inside. But there was no getting away from them, they finished dancing and came inside till closing time. There they sat drinking, singing, playing tunes and having a rare old time.
Sometime during the evening they gave us a programme of where they were for the rest of the year, well the pub for the next week was one we hadn't been to so we went along, the same the following week. So by the end of the summer we were persuaded to join the beginners practice workshop and the rest as they say is history. How long have I been dancing? Over 40 years!