On Tuesday 16 October, musician Donald McCombie and four members of the Adderbury Village side were able, at short notice, to join members of years 5 and 6 and their teachers at Christopher Rawlins Primary School to help them with their studies on the aftermath of the First World War in their village.

After fielding lots of interesting questions from the children on the origins of the Morris, our recent tour to the Somme and Passchendaele and the stories behind the Adderbury dancers who joined the conflict, Donald gave an abridged version of his ‘Story of the Dancer’ illustrated by a selection of our dances. Dave Reed played his harmonica and explained about the origin of our topless pyramid of hats, Donald led a rousing version of his song ‘Never Dance Again’ and our dancers with help from Linda Leslie, of Sharp & Blunt, taught the children a version of Shepherds’ Hey.

The children were very receptive and enjoyed learning about and practising our dances. Their class teacher thanked us for our input and asked whether we would be prepared to run a weekly after school Morris dance activity. I am very grateful to those who generously gave up their time for this workshop and hope that several of the children who took part will wish to join one of the three Adderbury sides in the future.

Squire John Ekers

AVMM were very proud to be the only Cotswold side performing at this year’s Hobby Horse Festival, which was on a smaller scale than in previous years. This was due to the event being condensed into a single day as a result of the Banbury Canal Festival being arranged on the Sunday. Organiser, Verna Wass, expressed her appreciation to the side for supporting the event and was impressed by the levels of fitness displayed, which enabled our dancers to perform with barely a break over four and a half hours.

Our horses, Charlie and Percy delighted the crowds with their antics, performing alongside a variety of other horses and the odd dragon and unicorn, most of which came from the local area. With ten dancers and two musicians performing, we were able to demonstrate the full range of Adderbury dances and provide excellent entertainment to fans of local traditions, visitors to the Folk Festival and bemused shoppers alike. Once again the team acquitted themselves extremely well: I have been so proud of the fact that the side has maintained such a high standard of performance throughout a long season and, in my view, are dancing as impressively as at any time during all the years that I have been a member of this great side.

Our youngest dancers, Dylan and Theo, contributed fully to the entertainment and drew many favourable comments from the crowds. The fact that the side has been dancing so tightly is due in part to the experience gained by the dancers from our two successful tours, for which Bagman and organiser Donald must be thanked. In addition, I would like to thank all today’s performers, most of whom have joined the team in the last three years, for all their hard work in practice before and during the current season.

Our thanks to Verna Wass, the White Horse for providing an excellent sandwich luncheon and to Neil Simmons, Modern Parlance Photos for his lovely photos.

John Ekers (Squire)

Thank you to all involved in the Allerford Music and Dance Festival and the related events in Somerset last weekend. We made a lot of new friends and shared our dancing, music and songs.

Following a showing of the ‘Ballad of Shirley Collins’ on Friday evening, AVMM performed at the Festival on Saturday afternoon. We shared the dancing and music-making with the local community choir, West Somerset Morris and the Minehead Hobby Horse and followers. What followed was a great show of community dancing and singing followed by the first ever procession of the Minehead Hobby Horse through the village of Allerford accompanied by our own horses, dancers and musicians. The singing of ‘Happy Man’ on the famous Allerford packhorse bridge with the Minehead Hobby Horse and Gullivers was simply magical.

Sunday saw AVMM dancing in Minehead at the harbour followed by a short impromtu service in a wonderful Sailor’s Chapel. On to the historic village of Dunster with dancing next to the historic Yarn Market, with the towers of Dunster Castle in the distance.

Well done all and especially Dylan, probably the world’s youngest Morris Dancer who can actually do all our dances. Everybody loved him and our wonderful dual horses – just like the pre-First World War side. Thanks to David Snell for restoring Charlie and making our new, small size hobby horse (‘Percy’). Thanks also to Graeme Horn and Lisa Eden from Allerford for organising this event and inviting us and guest accordion wizard Joseph Mallinson.

Where next? The Hobby Horse festival in Banbury of course on the weekend of the 13th October.

Donald McCombie