- I hope we get a different judge next week.
- Yeah the other one was bad.
- What do you think we'll get?
- They say twelve years.
I can feel panic rising as the boys converse behind me. One of these criminals had smiled and let me on the bus ahead of him. Nice lad, I thought as we both checked with the driver that this bus was indeed going to Boars Hill. Yes we were. £4000 in pure sterling bank notes felt like a radioactive signal in my bag. Such a nice sunny afternoon for a twenty five minute walk, alone, along a wooded lane… Such a relief when the lads got off one stop ahead of me for their stroll down to The Fox. Such a relief to make it back to the lodge at Youlbury without interference from Robin the Hood.
The lead up to the Lammas Tour felt like a long slow smooch, in comparison to the Tour itself. That felt more like a wild passionate affair, full of highs and lows, misunderstandings, ecstatic communion and yes – risk! It was a wild, passionate affair! The opening passage was humbling. I had such a romantic idea of introducing my friends to Oxford, with its dreaming spires and libraries, its meadows and its waterways… But where did we spend those first gathering hours – yes hours – but in the railway station and the forecourt of the car hire company. Baking concrete, a power sub station, high security fences, recycling bins: Electric Avenue in an industrial estate on a dozy Saturday afternoon. Everyone met as directed by Roger for the hire van pick-up, only to be foiled by administrative muddle and a flat tyre. Yet amidst the hire company’s confusion and the ennui of waiting when I should have been preparing for the evening activities, I was full of wonder that we had all come together on the other side of the world. Wonder - and confidence, that this group has been touring together for so long and we all know each others’ strengths and weaknesses that whatever setbacks lay ahead we would somehow make the best of any situation.
The early evening felt a bit flat after the afternoon disruptions, but I was touched that somehow behind my back there was a tacit agreement that we would keep the introductory Saturday Night On until we reached Bucknell rather than doing it before our first meal together. After all the meal would have been at the Bucknell Village Hall if things had run smoothly. Three weeks of heat and dry came to an end just in time for the Lammas Tour. Rain ushered our sinister looking convoy of black vans over rolling Cotswold downs to Bucknell Village and the beautifully maintained little hall – home of ‘Saturday Night On’ according to the Bucknell tradition. Somehow I had forgotten that twenty years or so ago, when there was still an active Bucknell side, I had coaxed guests at a Bucknell Morris Ale to dance Saturday Night On the New Zealand way. Bucknell Morris at the time only fielded seven dancers and danced it strictly proscribed in its six-person form. It wasn’t till I was watching all the Kiwis gathered for the Lammas Tour’s opening highlight, that I remembered back in 1991, wanting to bring my NZ Morris friends here. Oh the excitement that energised these moments, the wonder, the expressions of rapture from everybody there - and yes, there was a lump in my throat. The Bucknell Village Hall, with its photo on the wall of 19th century dancers, is so small and there were so many of us, but how we honoured that space on our first Saturday night together.
Every day that followed was remarkable and rewarding to me for different reasons. I’ve picked out my main personal highlights for this article. Sometimes the highlight was a personal delight like Celia Briar bringing her harp to join in at The Plough on Wolvercote Green, or satisfaction at the way our group was accepted and swept up by others. So many Morris visitors from around Britain joined us at Wolvercote in our first public appearance, and Celia’s unfamiliar accompaniment added an extra angelic dimension to that dancing idyll: outside a pub on a village green beside a leafy canal. The following night I had my own star struck moment – Christine Major couldn’t have them all to herself – when I realised that one of the musicians who had come along to The Greyhound at Besselsleigh was Keith Chandler. Keith is the author of my favourite Morris history ‘Ribbons, Bells and Squeaking Fiddles’. Amidst the excitement of mingling with Mr Hemmings, a side who have roots going back 500 years, I was able to talk to Keith briefly about his writing.
Tuesday at Headington – and another swooning moment when we met Pete Scudder, retired Headington Quarry man, who remembered being taught to dance at the the age of eleven by Merry Kimber himself. It was touching too, to be asked by the local pre-school teacher to come in and dance for the children. To keep it simple and apt, Bedlam (with their Headington allegiance) danced for young and old alike.
But Wednesday night was the most memorable of all for me. Something about the friendships I had already fostered with the Oxford City Morris Men and Oxford University Morris? Something about the casual nature of a regular Wednesday night dance out? Something maybe, about Kitty surprising me with her Nutting Girl jig danced, unknowingly, within metres of the spot where Elwin danced his qualifying jig for OCMM over 20 years earlier. But that climax in Friars Entry took Morris dancing to a new level even though I don’t think I danced a single step there. The towering brick walls took the accordion music and the incredible notes of Oxford City’s bass concertina and turned them into a pipe organ. The confined space; the handy bar of Far From the Madding Crowd; the dim light; all added to the party atmosphere. Random passers by joined the party and Bedlam, OCMM and the University side became noticeably competitive. How interesting that the more they drunk, the more they were set on showing off their prowess with RTBs and other demanding moves. By the time of the final processional off – Nutting Girl I think it was, as taught to us by Mr Hemmings on Monday night – there was a fever pitch. The procession snaked in and out of the pub - which thoughtfully had a door at each end - up and down the entry, and showed no sign of stopping after one round. When it did, I’m sure I heard one of the Oxford City men say in a surprised tone, “That was actually fun.” It certainly felt to me as though a boundary between performance and power had been crossed.
My Thursday reward was so unexpected that I remember the tears pricking the back of my eyes when I saw them gathered outside The Bear Hotel. In all my correspondence with the bagman of Icknield Way, and in my recent encounters with the side, I had understood that few if any would be able to join us for dancing in Wantage. But there they were – nine of them at least, looking gorgeous in their velvet waistcoats and with a musician as well. I think we wore them out that lunchtime. We all bought their beautiful Wyvern badges and piled around King Alfred’s feet for group photos before everyone dispersed for lunch.
At the end of that day as we drove home from the Vale of White Horse and into the Cotswolds again, the combine harvesters were beginning to reap the golden corn. Since our arrival in England seven weeks earlier Kitty and I had been aware of wheat growing from bright green, to ripening ears, and tonight on Lammas Eve the harvest had begun: another realisation that I had arrived in the Future. Here it was: the time that Helen and I had chosen, in those first planning stages of the Lammas Tour four years before – not just a date on the calendar, but a real seasonal occurrence.
Friday, well that was overshadowed by not only avoiding Robin the Hood, but nearly falling through a gate - that I thought was a handy railing above a basement pit - while conducting a press interview on my cell phone in a busy city street. This was while everyone else was dancing about in Bledington and Fieldtown. Saturday was all sentiment when in spite of the rain we made our date with the wedding party. All sorts of emotion mixed around young Elly, who I’d not seen since she was a child: the ache of her recognition at a time when we could do nothing but hug briefly, but also the triumph of the perfect barter – two sets of Morris sticks cut by her parents (in a thunderstorm) in return for some surprise dancing for the wedding party. My closing memory of that day and also of the week is of a figure in a dance at the Lammas Feast; the last dance of the night, the last dance of the Lammas Tour… I am usually in Woodhouse Bog, but sitting watching the NZers teaching our Cry Havoc friends on the hoof, was worth sitting out for. Two sets up, nobody in their normal position yet somehow two motorcycle heys looked spectacular side by side. What a finale.
So we worked together, mostly acknowledging each others’ strengths and weaknesses. We got frustrated with each other and the doors that wouldn’t stay open in the lodge. We exercised restraint under duress. “What do you mean it will be three days before you can get us another key for the fourth van?” Mostly we were patient and kind with one another. And knowing this would be so made it all possible.
© Jeneane Hobby, 2022