Summary: Vol. 17 Issue 1

Published: January 1998

Table of contents

• Is your team past its sell-by date?, or, “Old morris dancers never die” – but should they? A discussion 
• Dancing the morris – what do we dance?  by Nigel Wimhurst
• Yes, but is it morris? discussion at Sidmouth Festival led by Tony Forster
• The Public Image of the Morris discussion at Sidmouth Festival led by Simon Pipe
• Twenty (or so) years on – a personal view by Olive Cutting
• Letters 
• Noticeboard

Editorial

Welcome to 1998. It was fun compiling this issue in that I had to do a lot of phoning round to folks asking them at pretty short notice to contribute something – my work rather overtook me and suddenly it was my copy deadline! So, many thanks to the noble few who rallied round amid all their own work deadlines.

There seems to be a theme, not quite accidental, to this volume – of “longevity” or whatever you choose to call it. Morris teams, morris dancers and how long they can last for. Hence the Peter Pan cover design. I enjoyed a lot of the contributions – I hope you do too. Talking of longevity – I noticed in a recent Gallup Poll (November 1997) that Morris Dancing just beat the Spice Girls as an icon of British culture! (although I guess if the poll had been taken two months previously, they would have still been in vogue enough to win).

While typing this lot up, I also enjoyed my word processor’s spellcheck.. It came up with the following offers when challenged by a word – correct answers after noticeboard if you can’t guess them all.

• Pontoon Dimmers;
• Elderberry Morris;
• Hernia Morris;
• Karachi;
• Holiness Godliness;
• Giblet and Sultan.

On this subject – another comment made to me was that what do you do for a name when you found a new team and find that you are then the fourth morris team in your area? The others have already taken names from the local brewery, the local landmark, their favourite morris tune …. it was easy when the Ring was formed – you just called yourselves after the town you danced in. But now with so many teams- how inventive can you be? Enjoy the new dancing season.

Beth