Alan
with Paul's teddy
Alan
with Paul's teddy
(thinks - the sheep are starting to look worried, must be getting near the Welsh border
now) Yes it was Friday 15th and I was struggling in the traffic to get across the country
for the start of the Builth Festival. John, Kevin and Clive should already be there with
John and Peter converging from the North. The only Morris representatives at an event in
Wales hosted by the local Scottish (sic) Country Dancers and featuring Appalachian clog,
Cornish clog, Welsh dancers and visiting Romanians - what on earth did they want us for?
No indoor camping this year, we'd decided to book two self catering log cabins nearby.
Ours not only came with TV, video and stereo, it also rapidly acquired an accomplished
chef when
Paul
and H supply breakfast
Paul arrived. (Digression - all you Californians looking forward to the Millennas
Border Instructional Tour - never mind the dancing get in the cholesterol-enriched bacon,
sausages, eggs, etc and give him a pan. DON'T GIVE HIM ANY BEANS, HE DOESN'T NEED ANY HELP
AND THERE ARE BETTER WAYS TO CONVERT A HOT TUB INTO A JACUZZI).
John
Dumped my bags, straight into Kev's car and up to the barbecue and a determined assault on the barrel of Goodbody's bitter. It's getting dark but we change into kit (Mersey have never been this keen before) and run through a few dances. "That's it, done our bit, let's get to the bottom of this barrel of Goodbody's chorus Kevin, Richard and John. Clive, always a man of action where beer is concerned is already on pint 5. Time drifts pleasantly by... "..and now entertainment from the Mersey Morris Men" calls a kilted Scot with a microphone. A hasty announcement from the Squire that Mersey turn into pumpkins at 10:00 provides enough time to locate John who was still in kit. "Rather than break up the general dancing we'll show you a short Morris jig and then call a few dances for you" I say, propelling John into the centre of the room and gesturing to Alan to play. In the confusion I grab Richard, push him on stage with his box and as the jig ends successfully we call for 4-couple sets and stage whisper "what can you play". All passes smoothly and the rest of the side owe us a pint.
Saturday dawns, hot, sunny and (with Paul in the cabin) comes up like thunder. We locate
the White Horse and check out the beer. A few dances and the thirst drives us back inside.
It's lunch time so all participants meet up for a buffet lunch then trek back to the local
Arts Centre where the processional is due to start. We left the hall first but arrived at
the Arts Centre last. Well what do expect when the White Horse is en route.
We're in
luck (link to MDDL thread here) near the back, well away from the noisy Romanian band
(which sounds a bit like Paul in the morning). In front a quiet and sedate SCD group,
behind an equally quiet Cornish group. Well somebody's got to suffer - and the brief from
Vicky, the organiser, was to make a noise. We cut the number of dancers to six, pick our
stick clashing version of Winster Processional and assemble three boxes, a bodrhan played
like a bass drum and two fools. We take pity half way and briefly play a Scottish tune.
Otta
Nye Moaz! (Look at us go!)
Back to the Arts Centre where we all have a 15 min spot.
Damned fine Celtic Dancing from Cornwall
the
Romanians follow and we're told we're next. How do we follow that? Going for entertainment
value we enlist the children in Monk's March and the Liver Bird lays its egg and hatches
its radio-controlled Morris Man. If there was doubt after the first; Paul's second smoke
bomb confirms there are definitely no smoke detectors in the Arts Centre. We escape under
cover of the smoke. We must be on a roll, the applause seemed more than just polite and
two people come and tell us how much they enjoyed the show. One was led away by two men in
white coats and the other was dragged away by his guide dog - but it's better than usual.
The White Horse features again and we go back to our little log cabins to dump surplus
belongings.
After
stopping off at the WH we return to the Arts Centre for the evening performance. We're on
earlier in the programme this time and decide to include a slow precise Shepherd's Hey
from Fieldtown by way of contrast. Peter galleys out on the foot up and down and we all
qualify for audience sympathy and a pint each from Peter. The Liver Bird is obviously
affected by the spring and first lays a clockwork bouncing egg and then, surrounded again
by children, a plastic egg which hatches to reveal a clockwork duck. Then it's Upton Stick
(Chingford) with a dance off straight outside into the street. Not at all like Liverpool
and Birkenhead, nobody's chasing us or throwing things. For variety we get in some Bass
from the Hotel opposite and dance for an hour outside to cool off. We prove that we can't
remember Craven Stomp but have mastered the girly screeching. We attract some drunks but
they are easily repelled. Just as well as the flower beds aren't as big as in New Brighton
(see New Brighton scuffle ibid).
Peter
Back at the cabin we review Paul's video footage of the day, including specialist low
light footage, whilst he provides a continuous stream of pork and garlic sausage
sandwiches with brown sauce. Sunday dawns to the smell of Paul cooking us bacon and eggs
for breakfast. Peter proposes to him. Paul does his Romanian Band impersonation and Peter
changes his mind, muttering about phemerones and sulphur compounds. At 10:00 we meet in a
cafe courtyard whose owners had rashly invited us back to dance after seeing us on
Saturday. We attract in an audience if two for them over a 45 min period. Apparently they
normally have 10-15 customers at that time on a Sunday even when its raining.
Romanian
recruit
11:15 and Richard starts the Morris Instructional. 26 of the Romanians appear with
their interpreter and he goes pale. After a valiant effort everyone completes Greenbanks
and Highland Laddie and everyone claps and seems pleased. Life must be hard in Romania.
Time to go and we drift off. It's hot and we're dehydrated so a quick pint wouldn't go
amiss before the drive home suggests John. Peter and I agree. It seems great minds think
alike and over the next 10 min Mersey all reconvene in the White Horse.
A great weekend. I doubt they're lurking out there but thanks to the organisers and if you ever get the chance, we thought it was well worth the trip. Alan. PS. Rumour has it we're on (local) BBC2 at 19:30 on Thursday, filmed whilst dancing with the Breton visitors in Birkenhead a couple of weeks ago. As we only had 4 men turn up in time for the procession it could be pretty gruesome, but for those with strong stomachs.. PPS. I'm not the fat one with the Castignari.
Alan Barber
Bloody, bleedin, bloody, Builth, bloody Wells. Fancy having to work in London when I'm meant to be in bloody, bleedin, bloody, Builth, bloody Wells. H has still got his winter fur, and it is tres chaud in the smoke. He pants a lot, and occasionally drools a little saliva. You don't want to know.
London is a long way from bloody, bleedin, bloody, Builth, bloody Wells, and it is a frantic battle to get out of London with the other millions heading out for the weekend. In the stop-start tedium of numerous traffic jams, H snorts our whole weekend supply of coke and starts to gnaw the plastic seat covers.
Even in nineties Britain people are envious of those with a Rolls Royce, and today, being such a hot day, you MUST have a car with air-conditioning; still considered a luxury here. Unfortunately, after the party that H and I had in the Rolls with the twin Eskimo girls we picked up, when we ran out of booze and had to drink the A/C refridgerant, the car was hot. Very hot. But being snobs, we left the windows up so that the plebs would think that we indeed did have Air Conditioning.
The moisture content of my underwear and the locations of dampness on H, are two further subjects that you also don't wish to know.
As darkness fell, we wizzed down through the Welsh Borders, avoiding Ledbury and those bastards in Silurian. On the winding roads, I kept the car humming at a gentle 90mph whilst H clung to the windscreen wipers outside, with his face pressed against the windscreen, taking advantage of the cool evening air to caress his hind quarters.
Just before midnight we arrived at the designated hall. It was what our nightmares were made of; there was Folk Music, no beer and the pubs were closed.
Following a convoy of Mersey cars we arrived a delightful wooded site. The accomodation was in the form of well-situated chalets. Everyone was tired and retired immediately. There were three beds and four of us and the rabbit. Before we could blink, the other Mersey members grabbed the beds. H and I made ourselves comfortable on a large sofa, sharing our double sleeping bag. There was a stereo there, so H and I thought that some loud Techno was just the thing to help us doze off. Setting it to auto-repeat, it worked immediately, and we were both asleep in seconds.
In the
morning, we woke rested, but the other guys seemed to have had a restless night.
Suddenly H started screaming "A Moth! A Moth!" in a girly voice whilst standing on a poof. I started to assure him with "its only a moth for God's sa.." Within a second I was there with him on the same poof shrieking in the same girly voice.
In the UK we don't have serious critters, but this; yurgh!
We speculated that this may be a minature listening droid of the servants of the Devil,
Silurian, so tried to pretend not to notice it.
As
Mersey had recently doubled the insurance on one of our older members, Clive, they asked
me to take him across the condemned bridge abouve the river. This bridge was declared
dangerous when Jockey Morris wrecked it last year.
The Wye
valley and its tributaries are a tribute to the process of creation. You can die fulfilled
here.
Some of
the guys brought their families, but with the heat and fuss, it proved tiring. This is
Tony and his daughter.
Its hard
to think of Morris as dance, once you've seen Appelachian. "Shoostring" are
based near Newport in South Wales and have been together for about 4 years.
In my eyes, they were the top event.
They
were so good, that they are shown again here. The steps were truly exciting.
Whereas the Welsh and Scottish dancing was so tedious that I wouldn't be able to stay
awake long enough to write about it.
As for
the Romanians - what was that all about? Lovely people, but definately living on a
different planet.
Purtata is a Romanian group of dancers, musicians and singers from the Medias region of Transylvania. Saddo's on the MDDL will remember the adventures that H and I had there a few years back.
There is a strong German influence on their culture, which shows in their dancing. Blowing the brains out of Mr and Mrs Ceaucescu hasn't exactly improved their standard of living, and we had to keep checking that they were being fed, but they seemed quite happy with their lot. which is more than Gwerinwyr Gwent, the Welsh Folk Dance Team, are. They seemed to stand around scowling at each other. I suppose that wearing clothes that say "You're not going to enjoy this" doesn't help.
You've got the Welshies arguing who speaks better Welsh and who's more ethnic, and the Scottish Country Dancers with their noses in the air and broomsticks up their arse.
Sod
this. Kevin, H and I remembered the beer back in the fridge and traversed back
across the Bridge of Doom.
Unfortunately H didn't see that rotting timber. Still, there's more beer for Kev and I.
After all, beer is all that matters, isn't it?
Paul Millennas