INTRODUCTION

Almost invariably, when women's morris is mentioned to the average person, the reaction is one of surprise accompanied by a comment to the effect that they had always believed the morris to be an exclusively male pursuit. It is true that morris has always been a predominantly male field, but it has never been exclusively so. There have been instances of female morris spanning many years, probably as far back as we can trace the morris at all. Since I began dancing, at the beginning of the present 'revival' of women's morris if I may call it that, I have met with many shades of opinion, from mild interest to wild enthusiasm, whether in support or in opposition. I originally decided to write a book to record the events instrumental in this 'revival' and the developments since.
Val Parker (originally written sometime in the mid-1970s!)

THE 'REVIVAL' - ITS BEGINNINGS

The Bath City and University Morris Side was formed at Bath University under the guidance of Tubby Reynolds, who was in turn under the guidance of Mrs. Betty Reynolds, occasionally known as Beatrice for reasons that are not altogether clear. The side rehearsed each and every Wednesday evening at the university, registered with the student Union as the Folk Dance Group. This was because morris dancing was not the sole interest of those who attended the meetings, notably the various girls attached in various ways, whether through interest, morris men, musicians or whatever. Every week at half past nine, morris dancing would stop and social, or country dancing would begin. This state of affairs meant that several young ladies were unoccupied until half past nine at which time they were suddenly expected to be present and readily available to be danced with. This was not thought too highly of by the women who, shunned and redundant until the magic hour, were thereafter taken for granted as partners. Worse still was the fact that should the practising set be a man short for some reason, the girls were immediately asked to provide a stand-in. They were not, however, to form a set of their own.

Thus something had to be found to occupy the girls for the two hours proceeding. Evenings were arranged by Betty in which they could pursue various 'folk-style' subjects either through a talk or through practical sessions. However, it became increasingly obvious that the girls who came religiously every Wednesday evening really came to dance. They began to have a few sessions on long-sword and amazingly, from October 1971, morris-dancing. Betty had notation of two dances, known to have been danced by women. These had been taught at a workshop on women's ritual dance, given by Roy Dommett at Sidmouth the previous summer. Roy was henceforth to prove invaluable to us! They were both dances, which fell more or less into the category of north west morris, which seems to have always had a place for women. Of course, most of the girls dearly wanted to dance the morris of the CotswoIds but alas, such a thing, we were told, was unheard of.

These two dances, Whiteladies, Aston, and Runcorn from the village of that name, were performed at Bath University Ceilidhs much to the amusement of most of the men. Looking back, this was not too surprising as they were danced in ordinary clothes and one of the dances in question was particularly monotonous. I was present at one or two of these performances, having not yet joined the group, and can remember not being very impressed. However, although the men's attitude may have been understandable, it was also rather unfair for they had not given the girls much chance to do better. It was all regarded, despite Betty's hard work, as something of a joke.

Shortly after this, about mid-November, I formed a romantic attachment to one Dave the Fool, to whom I am consequently grateful for introducing me to the world which was to become so much a part of my life thereafter. It seemed to me that the girls, although extremely keen to dance, had progressed no further than the first time I had seen them. I was duly taught the Two Dances and joined in a performance at a ceilidh shortly afterwards. I should think the more regular visitors to these functions must have been getting rather bored with them by then. I am sorry to confess that I did not feel proud to be part of it, not because of anyone concerned, but because of the conditions under which we were obliged to work. I began to ask round the girls who had been there longer than I, what ideas had been discussed up to that point. I discovered that they had been eager to dance and had been contemplating having a special kit for some time but that somehow, it had never quite got underway. This led to renewed discussions on kit and the general consensus of opinion was that it should be complementary to the men's as far as was possible.

It was obvious that if anything was going to materialise we were going to need more dances. This was the first snag, being surrounded as we were by men who, on the whole, were not exactly devoted to our cause! We began to ask if it wouldn't be unreasonable for us to hunt out 'suitable' dances from among those the men knew and learn those. We slowly reached the rather unsatisfactory compromise that we could learn some if we liked but we were not to perform them in public.

With this much achieved, I began a search for dances with the help of Dave who was by now sympathetic to my cause. Whether he was genuinely won over, or had merely adopted an 'Anything-for-a-Quiet-Life' policy, I have never been quite sure. He had borrowed a copy of one of the Morris Books of Cecil Sharp's from his tutor at Bath and we found a dance which seemed to be what we were looking for. This was 'Maid of the Mill' as danced in Ilmington, Oxfordshire. Well, the ball had to be got rolling somehow by someone, somewhere, so I immediately phoned Betty who seemed thrilled that something seemed to be happening at last. She promised to track down 'Maid of the Mill' through her own sources. However, more important was the fact that it was during this telephone call that Betty first informed me that there had been a women's morris side in the past run, of course, by Mary Neal. This was news to me at the time and very good news too. Betty therefore also promised to try and get hold of a copy of these dances for us to have a look at. So, the Headington version of 'Maid of the Mill' was forgotten for the time being to be replaced by something which seemed a far better bet for us, as women, to attempt. At the time I was surprised that Mary Neal's dances had not been looked up before. The other topic discussed during this conversation was that of kit and Betty said the subject would be brought up the following Wednesday.

At last I felt that we might be getting somewhere and the next few days were days of extreme optimism and happy anticipation. The following Wednesday evening Betty and I compared notes on dances, especially the aforementioned 'Maid of the Mill'. Mary Neal's version proved to be rather disappointing. Many of the more interesting parts of the dances had been removed and replaced by rather boring and monotonous figures, sometimes just dancing on the spot. Whether the omitted parts were considered 'too unladylike' we shall never know, but the result was that the dances were most uninteresting both to perform and to watch. We learnt 'Maid of the Mill' anyway with Tubby's help, he being the only person present who knew the tune! He then insisted that we show it to the men. It was shown and had a mixed reception. I must admit we were quite pleased with it, but our enthusiasm was dampened somewhat by their reaction. Tubby had to agree that this version was rather anaemic. Esperance was abandoned forthwith and, at Tubby's suggestion, we decided we would learn the Ilmington version. The rest of the evening, before half past nine, was taken up with a discussion on kit. It was more or less decided that we should wear short black shirts, white blouses, a red sash instead of baldricks and bells and ribbons around the wrist. Two girls from the Domestic Science College agreed to provide a pattern and also to provide ribbon for the sashes. The evening finished with Betty promising to get in touch with Roy to inquire about possible dances.

Betty's enquiries proved fruitful and we were provided with yet another version of 'Maid of the Mill' and a completely new dance known as the 'Keswick Stage Dance'. We were further encouraged by the in formation that this version of 'Maid of the Mill' was a version danced by the women of llmington earlier in the century. At this time we agreed that our policy would be to dance those dances known to have been danced by women at some time or other in the past.

Things were now underway. We learned the two aforementioned dances and with some other notes sent by Roy, corrected the original 'I must, I must' henceforth to be known by its correct title of 'Runcorn'. At this point came a relatively big breakthrough. We were asked to dance in public at the Midsummer Revels to be held at the University at the end of June 1972. Naturally, we agreed. By now our skirts and sashes were made and various assortments of white tops were found. Attempts to obtain bells had so far proved abortive so our armbands had to be done without on this occasion. Betty promised to keep trying.

So, after a few difficulties over dancers and times, this being during the examination season, our first public performance was given. We are the first to admit that the performance was only mediocre and we did transgress the rules a little by including 'Constant Billy', Adderbury, in our programme but Tubby was by now becoming reconciled to the idea of women dancing Morris. I think this was because we had shown ourselves capable of putting on a reasonable show and had the potential to do better. Indeed, that academic year ended with a promise of things to come.

Most of the girls met once more before the start of the next University year, at the Bromyard Folk Festival. Betty arrived with the news that her quest for bells had been unsuccessful and we also learned that we would probably be asked to perform at the Freshers Ceilidh the following term. Agitated and excited discussions followed and we decided to add one more item to our kit, this being a straw hat. This was to be of the floppy-brimmed variety, preferably decorated with flowers. I also left having promised, by hook or by crook, to provide several sets of armbands, with bells, in time for the ceilidh. That promise resulted in more rushing and tearing than I had anticipated! I returned to Bath four weeks before the start of the University term in order to fit in a teaching practice. Nowhere in Bath could I find a shop that sold bells, so I contacted Betty once more. She referred me to a small handicraft shop in Bristol, which I first made the rather silly mistake of visiting on early closing day! I duly returned the following day to buy one hundred and fifty bells.

After two or three frantic evenings I had enough armbands for one set of six girls. Fortunately, on arrival at the ceilidh I found that several girls had made their own. Many wardrobes, cupboards and old chests had been raided as well, judging by the number of straw hats that had been miraculously acquired out of season!

We were asked to perform and our efforts were quite well received. More importantly though, we managed to recruit many more women from this ceilidh. We were amazed to find so many new faces at the following Wednesday' s practice belonging to girls wanting to learn to dance the morris.

Over the next few weeks we were teaching stepping, associated hand movements, swinging, for the benefit of social dancing, and other basics. We also taught 'Maid of the Mill', 'Keswick' and 'Runcorn'. We were surprised at the ease and rapidity with which the dances were learnt.

However, we hit on a few problems as was inevitable sooner or later. The first was that we had no musician who, as yet, knew the correct tunes for our dances. We had recruited Dave the Box as our musician, to whom many of our more light-hearted moments may be attributed, and we got by using tunes that merely 'fitted' For instance, 'Keswick' was danced initially to the tune of the Magic Roundabout! It was about this time that we found there were others interested in what we were doing. In particular, there were girls from Cardiff and from Cheltenham who were in contact with our club mainly through male morris sides. Thus, an impromptu workshop was slotted into the programme of the 1973 Albert's out of Town Festival held at Bath University, we had representatives from Cardiff, Cheltenham and from Oxford University, all of whom had begun or were destined to form sides of their own.

Unfortunately, one other problem still persisted and this was our decided lack of dances. The result was that more revolutionary ideas were sewn into Betty's mind with a view to remedying this situation. There was talk of the men having an instructional weekend from which we, as women, were naturally barred. Worse, e were still expected to do the cooking, fetching and carrying for them while they enjoyed themselves, which we considered rather an impertinence! Therefore, we agreed to cater for their weekend if and only if they agreed to cater for us should we hold an instructional for women. To our great surprise and delight they readily agreed to help us in this venture, which was an obvious answer to our problem of repertoire. So it was that the first modern-day Morris Instructional for women came about, a title which our local folk-club organiser was to refer to as 'a contradiction in terms' when advertising the event! Betty called upon Roy and, faithful as ever, he said he would come down on the weekend of March 10th, 1973 to give us an instructional on women's morris.

In the meantime, we had been hearing comments from various sources to the effect that our kit had rather the look of a girl' s school hockey outfit about it. At first we stood firm on the grounds of practicality but eventually our vanity was affected adversely by this description, We did not like to think that we had a 'jolly hockey-sticks' image and so gradually came round to thinking about changing it. Upon discussion we found that a generally 'olde worlde' style with longer skirts was considered suitable to the dances. I took a trip to Cecil Sharp house to look at some of the photographs in Mary Neal's book and sketched a few examples of how these earlier morris women had dressed. They all seemed to be based on the ordinary working clothes that would have been worn at the time. In the text of the book it was said that the dancers wore bells on elastic round their ankles. We decided to adopt this feature along with aprons, white blouses and straw hats. For our skirts we chose material available in several colours and which could be obtained year after year for each new intake at the University. There followed frantic attempts to have the new kit ready by the weekend of the instructional, now only a week away.

The instructional got off to a grand start with Tubby, Betty and Roy being an hour late! However, it hardly mattered and from then on it was one of the most interesting and enjoyable weekends I have ever spent. We had about forty girls there, from Cardiff, Cheltenham, Bath and Oxford, which was quite a respectable number for our first instructional.

Roy not only taught us dances, but showed us films of present day North West Morris including some examples of 'Fluffy Morris' as danced by girls in Lancashire. He also gave a talk on female involvement in morris generally. The boys did a splendid job of catering and we were very gratified to see how many had arrived to help. With the exception of one young man holding a banner with the inscription 'Keep Morris Male', we seemed to have been accepted!

A ceilidh was held in the evening to which those of us who had managed to finish our kit came in costume. It was greeted very favourably. Roy considered our choice a good compromise between the old and the new. Even those who had disliked the original sketches had to concede that the finished product looked very impressive. Betty ecstatically announced how proud she was of 'her gels'! The only disappointing feature of the ceilidh was the uneven balance of male with female dancers. There were simply not enough men to go round! The instructional continued on the Sunday morning, the sides having passed the night in the famous 'roomoverthegarage' at Tubby and Betty's Timsbury home. By the end of the weekend we had a fair stock of dances to work on and a most encouraging boost to morale.

More encouragements were to follow. We were invited to accompany the newly-formed Apley Morris side on their first tour of the villages in the Bath area. Unfortunately, the day proved to be a rainy one and we were made to suffer many sarcastic remarks from the men about the reasons why this should be. We were convinced that it was not a sign of displeasure at the sight of women out dancing in public! Indeed, we have had many tours since on which the sun shone brightly. There were a few moments that day which we preferred to forget, but on the whole, we were quite pleased with our first external public appearance.

Shortly after this we learned from Betty that we were to be visited by three of the organisers of the Letterkenny International Folk Festival, an event with which Tubby had had a lot to do and had visited every year since its beginnings with a team of men. Apparently, they wished to see the girls dance as well. They came, they saw, we conquered! We were included in the next invitation to perform at the five-day festival.

All these events and invitations were most promising but the biggest breakthrough was yet to come. We had, among out newer members at Bath, a young man who danced for one of the teams from Bampton-in-the-Bush in Oxfordshire. Marty Bampton, as he came to be called, managed to arrange a joint tour in Bath for our two sides and his side from Bampton. Well, anyone who knows anything about the world of morris will know the standing of Bampton. It is the only village claiming an unbroken tradition over at least the last four hundred years. At first we were not at all sure how the women's team would be received by such a well established and revered side as this. In the morning of the tour we arrived in trepidation, but soon found that our fears had been groundless. In fact, we were not only accepted, but admired, praised and best of all, invited by ArnoId Woodley to join them in their Whitmonday celebrations. The invitation was to the women only! Arnold said he could remember seeing the Ilmington Ladies dancing in Bampton when he was a boy, so he had no objections to our dancing this tradition.

The great day came and we followed the festivities in the village with keen interest. No side other than Bampton themselves may wear morris kit or dance in their village before six o'clock in the evening. They had made arrangements for us to return to one of the farmhouses on the edge of the village for tea and to change as the evening approached. Betty Collett's farm, and the teas provided there were to become well known over the years!

At six o'clock the tour began, our first stop being the residence of the Countess of Munster who enthused at the sight of the girls in their 'divine bonnets'. About half an hour was spent dancing on the lawn before we moved on to the town itself. Many Morris men had turned up from various places, including some of our own Bath City men, and were by now in kit. One or two dances were included in our tour for them, but most of the dancing was done by Bampton and ourselves.

We all returned to Bath feeling very happy and quite invulnerable to opposition. Indeed, there had been talk over the weekend, for some of us had camped in the local football field all weekend, of Bampton having a women' s side of their own. Unfortunately, I have not heard of any further move in this direction since. During that weekend we found the people of Bampton a warm and friendly community and from that day on they were a faithful and strong ally.

The final flourish to our first academic year as a fully-fledged morris side came with the Letterkenny Folk Festival in Ireland. I, and many others I knew, look back on those five days as some of the most magical and enjoyable they have ever experienced. We left from Holyhead on the overnight ferry and travelled by coach from Dublin through the beautiful scenery of Ireland. We eventually arrived in Letterkenny where we were divided into male and female and shepherded off in two directions to bed and breakfast establishments, each over the top of somebody-or-other's bar!

From the opening processional, with which the festival began, until the closing one five days later there was almost literally non-stop dancing. We danced need officially, unofficially, inside and outside and our standard had never been higher. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and when it was time to return home, we left with happy hearts, exhausted limbs and, above all, a sure and certain knowledge that women's morris had been well and truly revived. We were a morris side in our own right!

THE 'REVIVAL' - ITS GROWTH

Since that small group of women, thrown together at that impromptu workshop at the 1973 Albert's Out of Town Folk Festival at Bath, formed their 'pioneer' sides, Women's Morris has grown up once more, faster than anyone then believed it could. In just five years, the number of thriving women's sides had risen to several dozen. The workshop marked the first beginnings of the spread of the Women's Morris revival.

The gathering consisted of women hailing from Bath, Cardiff, Cheltenham and Oxford. Some had heard of what we were doing, and some had already begun to form sides of their own. Others were there almost by chance, having come along to the Festival to attend other workshops, or with male counterparts already involved in morricing.

There were difficulties, naturally, this not being a scheduled event in the festival. We had to recruit a musician from somewhere and although I cannot recall who it was we found, I do remember Dave Parsons, of the Cardiff Morris Men, recording the music for their women to learn and to practice to. He also insisted that I shout 'good and loud' so that the calls could be clearly heard on the tape! We taught 'Runcorn', 'Keswick' and, I believe, a version of 'Maid of the Mill'. I believe, also, that it was at this festival that we were first introduced to the Wheatley tradition through Tubby and Betty's son, Jim.

About one month later, on March 10th, our first instructional was held at Bath. Roy Dommett agreed to come along and take it for us. The girls who had been at the Albert's Out of Town Festival arrived with more recruits. Further to the introduction to the Wheatley tradition, Roy taught us the rest of the dances from that village. We also learnt another Ilmington dance, some garland dances and various others. Rumour has it that we even had one pregnant. dancer among us, hailing from Cardiff!

The following summer we each went our separate ways with a reasonable repertoire of dances.

The next side to be added to the list was the result of a meeting at the 1973 Bromyard Folk Festival. Betty had passed a letter on to me during the summer in which a girl from Chelmsford, in Essex, asked about what we were doing at Bath, as she had heard rumours of our dancing. I wrote to her giving a brief description of our activities and offering our services if she required help in any way. I had heard no more, however, before going to the Bromyard Festival. Whilst there, I attended a North West Morris workshop and one of the girls taking part came up to me and asked if I was from Bath, and on learning my name, introduced herself as the author of the letter to which I had replied.

Not long after, I braved a windy, rainy day to travel to Chelmsford to teach them some dances, concentrating on Ilmington and Wheatley. It was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm and with much interest in the other sides, such as how we had begun and what we had adopted as kit. As usual, we had some difficulties with music, but it nevertheless proved to be a successful visit. The revival had spread a little further.

Indeed, I was most gratified to see a small contingent from this new side had travelled across the country to attend an instructional held later that year in Cheltenham. This was on November 4th 1973, and the Cheltenham side, 'England's Glory', had hired a hall in the Cheltenham Art College for the purpose. Once more, Roy had been asked to take the instructional, but on the Friday night I received a telephone call from Betty, who told me that he had been unexpectedly called away on business and could not therefore attend as he had promised. Betty asked if I were prepared to do some teaching, at which I protested that most of the dances Bath City knew were those taught at the last instructional, which was attended by the same sides as would be at this one; with the exception of Chelmsford!

When I arrived at the College on the Saturday morning, I found most of Bath City already there and Sarah, who had succeeded me as Squire, had things well in hand. It seemed that each side had left the instructional held at Bath in March, and had since concentrated on a few dances each. Incredibly, each side seemed to have chosen a different set of dances, with the result that each could re-teach the dances they had learned well to those who had partly forgotten them. We also managed to find time in the afternoon for each team to display their 'best' or 'favourite' dance. Again, these all proved to be different. In fact, for some time after this event, there grew up a sort of tacit agreement that these few dances would remain more or less exclusive to the side which performed them then, at least when they were present at a joint event. Of course, with the rise in the number of sides since, this could not last forever!

The real importance of this event, though, was of a different nature. In the early days at Bath we had often light-heartedly suggested that there should be a society of female morris-sides, with some facetious suggestions being made that we call it the morris circle and base it at Tubby and Betty' s house, renamed Cecilia Sharp House'! However, it was not until the teams were altogether at Cheltenham that the idea, after many previous murmurings, was consolidated. All those present agreed that we needed a channel of communication between the sides, to facilitate the giving and receiving of news and to exchange notes on dance and music. It would also provide a central point through which to organise and advertise events and to whom new sides could apply for help, recognition and advice. Thus, the Women's Morris Federation was conceived.

To our surprise, after advertising ourselves in a relatively small way, we were flooded with letters from interested parties from all over the country. It seemed that we had opened a sluice gate in a dam all but ready to burst! Many had to wait some time for replies, out eventually the Federation was born and the Inaugural Meeting was held at Bath in October 1975.

Since most of the preparation had to be done during the summer, and since Bath City, being a university side, dispersed at that time of the year, Somerset Maids undertook the organisation of the weekend. This side was by now firmly established in Bath having been formed by an ex-Bath City dancer on her becoming a permanent resident in the area.

The weekend began with a gathering at Midsomer Norton on the Friday evening, about a dozen sides being in attendance. A short instructional was held on the Saturday morning and a tour arranged for the Saturday afternoon. One of the novelties of this was a converted double-decker bus hired for the afternoon, which had 'Women on Tour' and the itinerary on the front! This, along with a coach or two, was used to ferry the dancers from Bath to Paulton, Bradford-on-Avon and Trowbridge, where the bus unfortunately broke down!

Following tea back at the University, Roy Dommett showed us films of, among other things, the Bacup dancers and the Wishford Magna Faggot Dance. The day was concluded with a ceilidh in the evening.

Roy gave a further instructional on the Sunday morning and in the afternoon the first Annual General Meeting of the Women's Morris Federation was held. This was most successful, as was the entire weekend, and the sides made their way home having made many friends and knowing that this was only the beginning.

In conclusion, I must quote a comment made by Roy to another male observer during the tour on the Saturday afternoon, and overheard by one of the women: "I don't know what you think about all this, but I know one thing; you'll never stop it!"

Val Parker, val.parker@biscit.biz, 2.2.04