On Sunday the 31st of May we attended the Kirtlington Morris Lamb Ale along with other sides from far and wide. Kirtlington have a long-standing tradition with their Lamb Ale, and we were so grateful to be attending again. The day started with a procession through the village to the Church where an uplifting and folk inspired service took place. Hymns, songs and even dancing filled the Church and echoed outside into the Churchyard. Afterwards, we linked up with more members of our side, and began assembling with more arriving teams to form a larger procession through the village. Dancing to Speed the Plough, we made our way through the village as our band of musicians played for cheering crowds and spectators. We ended by dancing into the Primary School as you may have seen from some of the previously posted videos! Soucha and Dimitri did an excellent job of performing our horses, Percy and Charlie, who very much enjoyed leading our team.
We watched Kirtlington Morris begin the day with dancing some of their routines, and then all sides split into different areas of the village to provide further entertainment. We started with Summertown and Stroud Morris at the Dashwood Arms – Stroud featured a brilliantly dressed Squire as a sheep dog, with another member dressed as a sheep which fit perfectly into the Lamb Ale! Summertown danced elegantly with a member holding a beautifully made banner showing Summertown’s name – something we could only aspire to match with our flag! We headed to the village hall and danced with our fellow side from Adderbury, Sharp & Blunt, and Mason’s Apron. Onlookers were keen to join us, so we danced a communal Shepherd’s Hey with the audience, members of Sharp & Blunt and Mason’s Apron. Everyone did a great job and it was a good opportunity to get everyone involved in our tradition.
We headed over to the Oxford Arms to link with another fellow Adderbury side, Adderbury Morris Men, and Berkshire Bedlam. Berkshire put on a brilliant display of energetic capering, double stepping, and exchanging sticks in tight movements. Requests from our side to try that were swiftly met with a “no” from me – I like to keep a hold of my own stick for the duration of a dance! Our final venue for the day was the primary school, where we danced with Shakespeare Morris and Kirtlington Morris before the other sides joined us. Shakespeare sported their own impressive Hobby Horse which made us very pleased to see our Percy and Charlie weren’t the only horses attending. Hopefully we can see Shakespeare’s horse again at our own Hobby Horse event in October.
Whilst other members had a well-deserved lunch break, John and I danced a Jockey to the Fair jig which the Kirtlington MC commented was one of the fastest they’d seen. We don’t like to hang around when it comes to dancing and even a harder jig like Jockey is no different! Each of the sides performed one final dance, and of course for us it was all up for Brighton Camp. It was brilliant to see all teams come together for a final dance to round off a brilliant day of Morris in Kirtlington. Adderbury Morris Men invited everyone to join a mass Shepherd’s Away with a multitude of sides participating, which out team of course couldn’t pass up.
We should like to thank Kirtlington Morris for a brilliant and well organised day to celebrate the Morris – a tradition which brings people together from all over, and is a wonderful thing to share in our own unique ways. Thank you to our dancers and musicians who took the time to attend and travel all over the village – you all did excellently.
Finally thank you to everyone who submitted photos and videos – it took Richard almost 2 hours to upload them all to our FB page where there have been thousands of views. We love having photos and videos of our team. Thank you for the continued support, and we’ll see you at our next event!
Squire Ryan