Practice night on May 10th featured a special birthday for one member of the side, but Jameson wouldn’t tell us exactly how old he was except it was something between 39 and 41. Although the objective on the night was to do 40 dances to mark the occasion, we actually only managed around 20, but still its not the number its the quality. And he enjoyed his pirate cake.
Saturday 12th May saw us in central London for the Westminster Morris Day of Dance, an excellent day featuring mainly traditional Morris Ring teams plus ourselves. We danced in some well known locations around the Westminster area including outside Westminster Cathedral and in Trafalgar Square, performing mainly to slightly bemused but nevertheless entertained tourists. There was also a fair emphasis on pub breaks during the day so no opportunities for getting too dry.
The following weekend we were off to North Yorkshire along with other guest teams Mortimers, (plus Flag & Bone Gang for the Sunday only), for a weekend with Betty Luptons Ladle Laikers, who we have come to know quite well in recent years. Lovely people and excellent hosts, though it gets confusing to keep up with the various interrelated teams that some of their dancers and musicians are with! After meeting in Knaresborough on the Friday evening, on Saturday we visited first Fountains Abbey, where the remains of the Abbey formed a dramatic backdrop to our dancing and picnicking, and then Ripley, with another excellent venue for dancing outside the Castle grounds (and the sharing of Rob’s ice creams). Saturday evening consisted of a fish and chip supper at Bishop Monckton Village Hall, with dancing to a good scratch band of assorted musicians, interrupted by various spots from the guest teams. As it was Bettys’ 30th birthday, the theme of the evening was Pearls, and the guest spots included a dance with kitchen utensil percussive body popping accompaniment from our hosts, a Pearly Queens dance from Mortimers, and a ‘University Challenge’ type quiz from Flag & Bone, scripted by Jeff Garner, with the subject being the life and works of Jameson Wooders (Jameson very modestly managed to put up with being the centre of attention for a few minutes and looked disappointed when the spot had finished). BB’s contribution was to do our Sword Dance dressed as pirates (Curse of The Black Pearl and all that) which meant like we normally do it but with more oohh-aarrh ing and more pirate-y outfits. And Jameson got to wear his parrot again, which was nice. And then on the Sunday we were in Harrogate, finishing off with all the teams performing in the Valley Gardens, home of some natural springs though by now our own natural springs were somewhat losing their bounce. But a very enjoyable weekend as always in the Bettys’ company.
On Wednesday 30th May we were pleased to perform at the May Ball for the Bracknell and Wokingham Challenge Club, a weekly club for adults with learning difficulties. Then Sunday June 3rd saw us at Kirtlington again for the traditional Kirtlington Lamb Ale, as always with some excellent teams, and ably organised by Kirtlington Morris. We had a relatively small (in numbers) side but enjoyed the day as ever, which culminated as usual with Kirtlington’s Nigel muttering disparagingly at us as he introduced our show dance in the school playground. The day just wouldn’t be the same without his insults ….
Thursday June 21st was Solstice night at the Red Lion at Avebury, once again with the lovely Holt Morris, fine dancers and voices all of them. Andy again played a key part in our post-dancing vocal renditions though apparently had a bit of trouble with some of the words this year leaving Holt ahead on the singing side – but we’ll get them next year …
Then the weekend of Friday June 29th – Sunday July 1st was the event we had all been looking forward to for some time, BB’s 30th birthday celebratory weekend. The weekend, with a loose theme once again of Schooldays, had been organised by the committee of John, Bob and Jerry, all of whom put in sterling efforts, though Jerry in particular did a fantastic job in making sure everything happened as it was supposed to. The weekend was based at Polehampton Junior School in Twyford, which turned out to be a really good venue, providing playing fields for camping, hard standing for caravans, and an almost free run of the school’s facilities over the weekend. Our guest teams – Chinewrde, Ouse Washes, The Witchmen, The Flag & Bone Gang, and Gog Magog for the Saturday – were a good mix of excellent sides performing quite different kinds of dance, but all of them to very high standards, and all of whom know how to entertain audiences. The weekend started on the Friday evening with a get together in the school hall, partly fuelled by the 6 barrels of beer laid on for the weekend. Then after breakfast on the Saturday the sides split into 2 tours, one group proceeding to Reading on the train, the other group dancing briefly in Twyford before also heading into Reading by train. Now, it has to be said that at this point the weather outlook was less than promising. This was the end of the week which had seen exceptionally heavy rain and floods in many parts of the country, and the forecast for this weekend had been looking bleak too. The Saturday morning started off pretty wet making the morning dance spots a bit damp, but as the day wore on the weather improved and everyone finished up having a good day with plenty of good dance opportunities. The Reading dance spots were the Oracle display area in the morning and again later in the afternoon, and the 2 canalside pubs The Fisherman’s Cottage and The Jolly Angler, both of which were exceptionally friendly and welcoming. Lunch was at The Back of Beyond, a Wetherspoon’s pub which was also very welcoming, and had cleared a large space for us all as well as providing a very rapid service for food. After this, all of the teams proceeded to The Oracle, where the largely covered display area with tiered seating provided an excellent venue, with good audiences who appreciated the wide variety of Morris styles on display, all performed to an extremely high standard.
After this it was back to the school for afternoon tea, and to go swimming, chill out or take part in the School Sports day. Flag & Bone were selling sick notes for those that didn’t want to take part, but several did, and it was the Flag & Bone team who did Yorkshire proud, winning enough individual events to be declared overall winners, and prompting Ted, Jeff and Mike to go on a lap of honour of the school hall using a trophy temporarily nicked borrowed from the trophy cabinet. This led into the evening Barbeque supper, followed by a ceilidh with the excellent Geckoes, featuring our own Andy on a variety of bass-y guitars. The ceilidh had to be interrupted a couple of times, the first time for puddings (which had at last thawed), Irish bingo, Tim’s ‘all you never wanted to know about BB’ quiz results (Emma, you know far more than is good for you), and a highly entertaining spot from Ouse Washes, featuring some fine dance from 2 of their enthusiastic younger members. The second interruption was for BB to reprise one of their favourite spots of recent years, their Men In Black routine, and giving us the opportunity once again to be black-suited, booted, and shaded while performing various odd shaped moves to a funky techno dance track. After that was cake – a ceremonial parading round the room, and then cutting and sharing, of the celebratory 30th birthday cake which Bob had created, with edible photos of the old and current teams on top – bizarrely, several people wanted to eat their own picture which must show something strange lurking in their psyche…
The next day had been planned for Henley, where despite threatening skies the day stayed fine and dry, with excellent dancing conditions. A week before the famous annual regatta, there was a lot going on in the town and by the river, but the dancing started in the Market Place where all the teams performed in turn, again putting on a fine show. After a beer break, the dancing concluded at Mill Meadow, down by the Thames, where an appreciative audience was again treated to some fine dancing before BB finished the performances with the Dance of The Little Fairies, followed by getting everyone present (audience and guest teams) to share in the magic of the occasion by getting them to go through the ‘Magic Arch’ formed at the end of the dance. (By the way, to everyone who went through – sorry but it wasn’t really magic, even if you went through 3 times as we noted certain people doing). That marked an end to the formal proceedings, and time to say goodbye to all of our very welcome guests, before BB went back to the school for a tidy up followed by a welcome swimming session in the sunshine which had finally emerged. A great weekend for all of us, and we think it went down well with our guests too. Well done again Jerry!
A week later (Sat 7 July) saw us in Richmond for a Day of Dance hosted by Hammersmith, along with Chiltern Hundreds, New Esperance and Black Annis. This was a walking tour, visiting 6 pubs, starting at the Orange Tree and including along the way The Roebuck at the top of Richmond Hill with fine views over the Thames, and the White Cross down by the Thames. A good day’s dancing in fine weather, welcome after all the rain of May and June, and Hammersmith were in fine form despite some of their members being hived out for the day to some of the guest teams (including of course Jameson to us). And the crib boards never came out all day ….