What a joyful occasion this was! With a full band of musicians, comprising of a brace of fiddles, a set of bagpipes, hurdy gurdy, button accordion and harmonica plus two sets of six dancers, Adderbury Village Morris Men entertained a large crowd at this lovely event. We danced for a full hour with hardly an error despite the challenge posed by the narrow aisle in St Mary’s Church. The announcer was effusive in her praise of our efforts and complimented us for our encouragement and inclusion of younger dancers in the side. Although at least one vain sexagenarian in the side thought that she was talking about him, I assumed she meant Alfie, Hector and Dylan, who all danced well and never stopped smiling throughout our full repertoire of dances. As ever we attracted a large number of volunteers for our audience participation dance and the Recruiting Officer was delighted to meet some friends of Dime’s, whom he hopes to welcome to the side in due course. I should add that we also received plenty of compliments for our beautifully decorated Christmas tree too.

Should anyone reading this be interested in joining the side or in booking us for future community events please get in touch. Details can be found on the website.

John

John writes: Our thanks to the dancers, friends and family who met on Thursday 4th December to put the finishing touches to our Christmas tree (St Mary’s Adderbury, annual Christmas tree festival). As well as a magnificent woollen model of a Morris Man, knitted by Musician Sue last year, our decorations were enhanced by a wonderful set of dancers and musicians in AVMM kit, made by Svetlana out of salt dough and beautifully painted to represent individuals in the side. Whilst Musician Donald might be easy to identify, see if you can spot which model shows the Squire or the other quirky characters which make up the team as it comes to the end of the 50th anniversary of the revival side which keeps the tradition of village dances and songs faithfully recorded by Janet Blunt alive for future generations to enjoy.

Members and supporters are encouraged to come along to the festival over the next few days (where you can vote for our tree!). We are dancing at the St Mary’s, festival between 12.30 and 1.15pm on Saturday 6th December.

Additionally, our forthcoming events are:

‘The Story of the Dancer’ (Donald’s powerful story about the World War I Christmas truce) Wed 10th December, Preston on Stour Village Hall, Warwickshire 7.30pm

Boxing Day Dance Out Adderbury, Meet at The Coach and Horses at 12.15pm Friday, 26th December. Our thanks to Sarah for the lovely photo of our tree!

On Saturday afternoon Rhys and Michelle at The Bell were delighted that we were able to display the full range of Adderbury Village Morris dances outside the pub to help draw attention to their excellent Festival of Winter Ales. With two musicians and eight experienced dancers, we entertained a decent crowd on a cold afternoon and drew in many keen volunteers for our crowd participation dance. I counted 20 dancers, at the end of which only Isabel and Donald, our long suffering musicians were still feeling chilled. After we completed our set of dancing with the obligatory Brighton Camp, we were able to retire to a packed and very warm pub, where some of us were able to sample an eclectic range of seasonal ales from local breweries, including Hook Norton’s Twelve Days. Thanks again to all Saturday’s dancers who produced some very impressive and accurate dancing. Special mention, however, must go to Hector and Dylan. One of our senior dancers commented that they both seem to have grown about a foot over the past year and the quality of their capering, like their height, has increased significantly.

On Sunday morning at Hornton Parish Church we were asked to perform in a very different environment viz. to present Donald’s powerful Story of the Dancer as the central part of a church service. Once again, we were able to field eight dancers, although only three of these had performed on the day before. This team were thus less experienced overall than Saturday’s side. Indeed three of them had never previously appeared in this powerful story of dancers drawn into the tragic events of World War 1. Since the performance required us to dance some of our less frequently performed numbers such as Happy Man and The Buffoon, Squire Ryan had to marshal his troops with his customary wisdom. In addition the very narrow aisle of this tiny church created challenges for all the dancers, particularly in performing Heys. The congregation were unanimous in their praise afterwards and the vicar asked us if we would consider repeating the show at one of the larger churches in the benefice next year, to which the answer was, of course, affirmative. As I left the still packed church, Donald was fielding questions about the various sources for his wonderful story, Ryan was attempting to teach an enthusiastic parishioner the rudiments of Shepherd’s Hey and the rest of the side and our supporters were enjoying coffee and biscuits.