Gillespie park Ecology Centre

A lovely afternoon at the Ecology Centre, perfect weather, an appreciative audience, and just enough men to make up a full side.
And Jeremy brought our bells back from the Prince's trust do too.
(which was aparantly very good)
Even though it's just around the corner from the Aresenal's new Emirates Stadium, Gillespie Park feels like it's right out in the countryside.
A friendly dinosaur joined in and posed for pictures



Unfortunately we missed John Hegley and Rob Newman but enjoyed some of the other acts.

The press were there too, Andy, a local photographer was taking photos for the Islington Gazette.
I'm sorry, I've lost the paper I wrote your site down on, Andy, so if you chance to read this, contact me and I'll edit it in.

Would you trust this woman with your bells?

This is Holly Davies, from the Prince's Trust.

Look at her bag -- she is carrying ALL our bells.

Apparently, she's persuaded a group from her office to learn Morris and put on a public performance for charity, this Thursday at Cecil Sharpe House.

Either that or she's just stolen the bells of an entire Morris side for a dare... we'd better make sure there's at least one of us at the show on Thursday, just to make sure.

It's all for charity - helping disadvantage youth (which is what the Prince's Trust does).

It's therefore firmly in the revived Morris tradition. As we all know, Mary Neal started the revival with a side of disadvantaged girls in London. And here they, are, courtesy of New Esperance.

Holly caught us as we finished up another successful but exhausting Canal Festival outing - our third year at an excellent festival.

As usual, my photos are just of cute baby owls. Oh, and some dejected men, stripped of their bells. Luckily, Peter's done us proud - see below.

Oh yes, and anyone else want to challenge the Islington Boat Club to a canoe race next year?

Islington Canal Festival

We've been coming to the canal festival for a few years now, it's an enjoyable afternoon, dancing by the canal side. The weather held off, after an unpromising start to the day, and it was nice and sunny, no doubt due to the power of the morris...

We fitted in between the likes of African drum and dance, Pearly kings and queens, Tragic Roundabout, and the amazing pedal powered machine that saves the world.

We all gave our bells up at the end to lend them to the Princes Trust, who are doing a fund-raising show at Cecil Sharp House - the senior managers have all been persuaded to learn Morris Dancing for the show...

Thames Valley Day of Dance

We'd been invited out for an evening in the leafy lanes of Croydon, as guests of Thames Valley Morris Men, along with Northwood Morris Men, Blackheath Morris Men, and Old Palace Clog

There wasn't a full side of London Pride, but we still managed to do some dancing. It was a lovely evening and good to meet the other sides.

Lovely fish and chips too at Mr Chippy, courtesy of Thames Valley.
Many thanks to them for inviting us, and especially to James Denny for organising it all.

Back at Newington Green

We had a pleasant afternoon dancing to Neville's violin in Newington Green, you might just think it a traffic island if you only drove past it, but it's got a very pleasant little park with a history

We were dancing for Islington Surestart's international festival, along with celtic, turkish and carribean groups.

It's our second time there this year.
I haven't photos of the side dancing I'm afraid, but this might be why Ezra was feeling too sick to dance after one break:

TMO Fun Day 22 July

Holland Park had a marquee, a steel band, a barbecue, the tenants and staff of Peter's project... and us.

Everyone else had a long presentation in the marquee, and emerged to head for the barbecue. This gave us a nice audience, albeit one with its mind on food, not us.

We were joined in Bonny Green by Sarah Carrot, of the Moon Carrot circus skills team (who also did a great job keeping some of the LP kids occupied). As you can see, she is very tall. She did a fine performance - not at all stilted - but I only managed to snatch a poor photo before we started....

Monson Party - 15 July

Two of our men had birthdays recently. John and Jeremy Monson are 80 and 50. So we had a celebration in the Harpenden village hall, with music, country dancing, food and drink.

I'm sure there are more photos of the occasion, but here are some blurry ones of the birthday boys cutting their cakes, using the official London Pride Cake Sword (a nineteenth century cavalry officer's blade, I understand).

People from at least three generations had a good time, with country dancing for as many as willed, at all standards.

I will remember the sight of Peter K, partnering Noah and dancing the woman's steps. Very dainty.

At one point, a circle dance left Peter waltzing with John, both in kit. It made me wonder. How about a whole 3/4 Morris tradition, developed by itinerant Austrian musicians, and only just re-discovered? We could start with Sweet Jenny Strauss and go on from there...

Kitty and I stayed till the end, and went home on a train which stopped at West Hampstead due to engineering works (it was true, we could see they guys on the tracks).

We got in at 12.30. Alison said she hadn't expected to be waiting up for some disreputable guy to bring home Kitty from a party - at this age.

7 July - Chelsea

No photos for this one (I forgot my phone) unless someone else wants to edit some in.

A highlight of this evening was the presence of James Denny, melodeon player for Thames Valley. He pitched in to play for some dances, as we were somewhat short of numbers for the first stand at the Anglesea Arms - until Jeremy arrived.

This meant we had the pleasure of seeing John dance.

The Anglesea was a friendly place, as ever, with plenty of appreciative people outside. Another former dancer bumped into us, and passed on his wisdeom, as they do.

At the close of the show, about 100 people on roller skates shot past along Neville Terrace. We invited them to join in, but they said dancing was tricky on skates.

Some attractive American students took photos, and took a fancy to Antony.

The Surprise is in a nice secluded back street which is, apparently, afflicted with a curtain-twitcher. The pub has had a succession of landlords who have been persuaded to remove the outside benches, and the place seems depleted. The current landlord warned us we'd have to stop if there was a complaint.

There wasn't. Locals chaps joined in, and kids on bikes cycled past, mocking us good-naturedly. We put on a wider range of dances, still with support from James.

We ate sandwiches and chips and wandered home. Pretty much the definition of a good evening's Morris.

Sophie Countess of Wessex Opened for us...

... though we didn't actually meet her.

Last night we were at the Summer Fete at Dolphin Square in Pimlico, the biggest mansion block development I've ever seen.







A thousand flats, and the home of celebrities including Harold Wilson and Mandy Rice Davies, it has a very nice garden which yesterday, had a marquee, refreshments and a bunch of residents enjoying themselves.







Sophie opened it at 3pm, so she was gone by our first spot at 7.30. We didn't meet her, but we did catch up with our old friend and international Morris celebrity (he's toured abroad), Bruce Clitherow.








He's in fine form!

Islington: Surestart, the adventure playground... and the robot horse

Two places to dance in Islington, on a sunny Saturday (10 June).

We started at Mildmay Surestart's Summer Fair, on Newington Green. The show coincided with England's opening match against Paraguay, but despite this we had an audience.

Given the football, and the fact that Surestart is the Government's programme to support young families, the crowd was about 95 percent female.

A very hot day, so we had two short performances, and lots of tea in between. There was fine curried goat, available from a woman who remembered us from a previous Canal Festival - her son was the four-year-old who was determined to join in outside the pub in 2004, remember him?

At the opportune moment, Jeremy announced "I've got another place to dance at, it's just round the corner," and managed to whip up a small amount of enthusiasm. Well quite small in fact. He cycled off with one other man - me.

I was glad I went. It was a fundraiser for the Hayward Adventure Playground, which caters for children with disabilities. When we arrived, they were being entertained by a man juggling with a chainsaw ("don't try this one at home"), and a band was warming up in the background. There was more tea, and very nice banana cake.

Pretty soon there was a suitable spot for a solo jig, and then some hanky-waving action with all the children chasing round.

And then the mechanical horse arrived. The children shrieked, but Jeremy seemed to get on quite well with it. My day was complete.

Derwentwater Primary School's 100th Anniversary

Quite a multicultural event. While we were waiting for our spot there was a band playing something that reminded us of west african music.
A bit of bopping to the music went on:

It made me wonder if Will Kemp had been dancing to Soca?













I'm afraid I haven't photos of us in action as there was only 6 of us including Nick, who was playing Melodeon and dancing in the set at the same time!

The light was fading afterwards, blurring my photos:

There was also some sumo morris:

Audience participation at Notting Hill

A warm evening, and a nice audience in two public spaces in Notting Hill - followed by a meal at Peter K's work.

This clip gets the feel of it - Peter's residents sitting on the wall, one gent joining in with gay abandon, and three girls skipping round us, and the piercing tones of Jeremy's sax. Public Morris as it should be!

At Thaxted

We had a lovely weekend at the Thaxted Ring meeting.
London Pride did a show dance in the square, at which the squire of the Morris Ring introduced Noah and Ezra, our two newest recruits. It probably would have gone better if I'd remembered to call the dancing, but the audience kindly didn't seem to notice.
We were actually a full side of London Pride dancing, though half of the men were in Cambridge MM kit.

Kensington Tour

Hot foot from teaching Ben Taylor of LBC to dance we were on tour in Kensington.
The power of the morris drove the inclement weather away, and even though it was chucking down when we arrived, it wasnt bad by the time we danced.

We were a rather diminished side this evening, and danced dances such as a Rosebud instead of Rose, and a Valenteeny Valentine.
And some jigs. It all went down well still.

We had audience who'd come up specially to see us before going off to Spain, where she'd seen similar stuff in her native Basque region (hi Rosario!) and Tom the photographer taking photos of us looking up at the laden clouds and phoning round to see if any more men were likely to turn up.

At the Uxbridge Arms it turns out that rumours of Linda, the welcoming landlady's departure were unfounded, though unfortunately she had another engagement that night.
Sorry to miss you Linda.


At the Uxbridge Arms

Teaching an LBC reporter to dance

LBC reporter Ben Taylor, whose past work has included interviews with Jimmy Osmond and Sir Ian McKellen, took the obvious next step of learning some Morris.

This being radio, we made sure we were in kit, and fitted him with a baldrick. As you can see, he made a good fist of the opening steps of the Nutting Girl.

The item is pretty brisk - we were keeping Ronan Keating waiting - but it should be broadcast sometime this summer.

We are moving to practice rooms just round the corner from LBC's Chrysalis building in September, so Ben is welcome to join us there...

At the Compton Arms in Highbury

A lovely evening despite us having to compete with football (apparantly they hadn't checked our programme before arranging the UEFA cup)


A bit of Jigging also went on:






And Ezra did one:


- a challenge for Noah now!

here's some photos of the Bloomsbury tour

This is Tom who came to photograph us:


The light was fading a bit for the second stand.

We're in line, Antony!



















Noah and Ezra were brushing up on their sticking:



Thanks to Lynnete, and to New Esperance for finding replacement pubs... We'll be back to these!

Morris - no longer an icon?

The media reported last week that Morris dancing ("along with the mini skirt and the double decker bus") is a cultural icon of England. But is it?

On the Icons site, the morris page, "has been withdrawn from the site".

That's typical really. Once we've done our thing, and had our bit of exposure, we get shuffled off. Time for a campaign?

2 May, dancing in Bloomsbury

No pictures for this one as yet, though we had a photographer in tow, doing a project on Morris dancing because we are a cultural icon.

Both pubs had to change, because the Norfolk Arms suddenly closed, and the Rugby Tavern has become a "No Morris" pub.

We went to two friendly back-street pubs: The Dolphin, and McGlynn's.

With eight men dancing, we performed two Brimfield sets side-by-side (and in step, at least at the start - though the ending was a bit ropey), and Vandals Lichfield. As well as that, we did other favourites including Shepherds Hey Wheatley, and the Upton stick dance.

Roy's Hat was there in Deptford...

Here being modelled by Peter dancing "Hunting" from Adderbury

May Day with the Deptford Jack

It was May Day. Something had to happen. In Deptford, the Jack in the Green was abroad, with milkmaids dancing in garlands of silver, and Morris men from Blackheath. The Fowlers Troop have revived the Deptford Jack, recreating it from photos taken in 1906, by local historian and press photographer, Thankfull Sturdee.

Video of Ezra dancing the Rose

Here's a video of Ezra's first dance out - The Rose

(sorry, it needs Quicktime 7 and I haven't sussed how to embed the video in this page yet)

Jousting at Acton

Well, who would have thought, our newest member would be the "dashing" Count Adhemar of Acquitaine, seen here wearing the distinctive London Pride bowler?

On Saturday we started the dancing season, performing at a St George's Fayre, at The Park Club - a health club in Acton.

Further up the bill were the New Scorpion Band. They're not, as one might suppose, a tribute band for the well-known German heavy metal band, but a lovely acoustic folk band.

Also on the scene were the Knights of the Damned, a jousting stunt team. Count Adhemar, the Black Knight won my favour, and honoured me by wearing the black bowler, before competing in the lists. I thought that "favours" were really a sort of courtly love thing, but obviously, the Kinghts are more broadminded than you might have expected. Anyway, I'm a sucker for the glamour of evil.

We danced two sets, with three Kanssens in the team. Noah and Ezra got plenty of dancing in, in fact we relied on them, since the day coincided with a London Pride club weekend elsewhere...