Bensheim 2007 Blog Part 2

A Saturday of mixed blessings

A revitalised Dave picks up the story on the Saturday morning, following a hectic Friday full of aeroplanes, coaches, seas of stone and dancing. But Saturday had it's own drama and adventure to offer; a day that would see one member of the team hospitalised, and an old friend now living in the area turn up for a tune and a bit of a jolly:

Woke up on Saturday morning feeling much refreshed, following the a heavily destended, yet enjoyable, previous day. Thus enabled, it was off to the 30th Twinning Jubilee at Bensheim’s Parktheater, a reassuringly short walk from Hotel Bacchus.

Now, you may be asking why Woodside have been invited to a twinning celebration for the towns of Amersham and Bensheim, but there is a very good reason. Since our earliest days as a dance side, Woodside have danced in the Buckinghamshire town (see our scrapbook images from 1960s), and continue to do so on a regular basis, having formed a close relationship with the town, and become the popular choice for Cotswold Morris at Amersham town events, such as this year’s Heritage day.

This morning’s event was the real civic deal, and started off with an excellent rendering of the European hymn, Ode to Joy, by a handily placed Hungarian youth orchestra, one or two of whom looked like they may have been out on a late one the night before - though the music was un-affected by any possible discretions. Bensheim is not only twinned with Amersham; the town also has a long list of towns that should supply the town council with a bumper jolly practically every other weekend of the year. Present at this particular event were representatives from Mohac, in Hungary (providers of youth orchestras to town twinning events), and from Riva del Gada in Italy, who brought nothing with them except, presumably, a few bottles of Chianti and some interesting pasta dishes.

With it being a bit of a civic dignitary type affair, there were lots of slots assigned for speeches by the respective Bergermeisters and Mayors, one of which, who will remain anonymous, had left his speech at home in Amersham and had to ‘wing it’ - leaving an odd situation whereby the audience actually had a German translation of the speech, whilst the speaker didn’t have any version of it at all. Interesting!

The event was joyously punctuated by a number of performances by the Woodside Morris Men, with our Morris dancing providing a pleasant interlude between speeches, I hope. During the course of the dances, a rather good photograph was taken by young Dave Ritchie which must be preserved forever to demonstrate the correct elevation to be attained by all Morris men when dancing Fieldtown - the dancers demonstrating this practically perfect presentation of the art shall, like the Mayor of Amersham, remain nameless, but Dave Lang and Myself hope that you will enjoy the picture as much as we do.

On a more serious note, during the meet and greet of the event, Woodside musician Dennis was taken ill, and an ambulance was called to cart him off to a nearby hospital for a check up. This cast a bit of a shadow over the whole of Saturday, or at least until we got news later in the afternoon that all was well, but he was being kept in for observation. Just goes to show the truth in the old saying “it’s better out than in”, and that when needs must, it is really better to let go and risk offence, rather than hazard ill health.

The finale of the event, in terms of civic mannered activity, was the signing of a reaffirmation of the friendship between Amersham and Bensheim, and to renew the twinning, or freundeskreis as the good burgers of Bensheim refer to it, and I am pleased to say that Squire Geoff managed to muscle in on the commemoratives, both of a photographic and liquid nature. The event was then neatly closed with a Hungarian reprise of Ode to Joy.

Following the civic, we had lunch provided at the Kolpinghaus, venue of the previous night’s reception, and were well looked after in terms of fayre. The place was heaving with people involved in the twinning and the Wintzerfest, and it was here that we received first news of Watford FC’s (dear to the heart of a number of travelling Woodies) fussballing exploits that Saturday. The eventual news was good (Watford 2 - 0 Tractor Boys).

Later that afternoon we danced up at the Lamertsbrunnen, which I think may have something to do with a well once owned by someone called Lammert, but is basically a nice little area in the town market where a travelling Morris might pitch up and shake a leg to a collection of itinerant musicians. So we did.

A bonus for the side was that at this point we were joined by former member, Trevor Upham, who has recently married Katrin and moved to Frankfurt, where they have been gifted with a baby daughter. I have resisted a whole raft of jokes stemming from Corporal Jones’ catch phrase in Dad’s Army, which I am sure Trevor has heard far too many times before. Trevor's arrival was a chance for a bit of catching up with some of the side's longer serving members - he commented on the bickering and winding up between Roger and John C with "they were exactly the same back then."

After the dancing, Trevor joined in with a few tunes, then we dispersed in the general direction of Hotel Bacchus, where I got a taxi, along with Pete and Julie Bradshaw, and Dennis’s dad, Brian to go and see Dennis at the nearby hospital, which when the chips were down, wasn’t very nearby at all. When we got there, we were delighted to see that Dennis was sitting up and looking well, though we were less delighted that he didn’t have a shirt on. It was good to see that, with concerns about Dennis’s health, the hospital had provided a ham and cheese dinner, low in both fat and cholesterol, at least compared to a whole pig covered in lard and stuffed with more pigs. Fatty bacon and potatoes doused in mayonnaise or oil are almost standard fayre in this part of Germany, and whilst tasting great, does not represent the healthiest diet in the world.

We spent a pleasant hour at the Hospital before heading back, to find that we had completely missed the festival opening wine taster civic, held again at the park theatre. This event has a number of advantages over the morning’s do, in that 1) it has an abundance of free wine, and 2) there are blokes firing 19th Century weaponry in the courtyard. Sadly, those that visited Dennis sampled neither, but we were consoled by having had the pleasure of our ailing musician’s company.

In the evening, we headed back into town and I had Flamkuchen for dinner, which is an excellent pizza type dish from the Alsace, knocking socks off of pizza into the bargain; it won my ‘dinner of the entire do’ vote, which no one was particularly interested to know when I mentioned it. Trevor, Katrin and sprog were also in attendance as, post din-dins, we sat and played, sung and even danced the night away. The festival involves the whole town and surrounding area, and everyone seems to be in the mood for a little entertainment, and our little performances drew crowds as they walked past, though what was going through their minds I don’t know. It was a great evening, and when we finally got back to the hotel, I was only able to persuade brave Roger to stay up for a night cap, during which we joined a number of the Amersham civics with whom we chatted to about just how good Bensheim trips were.

It was a good day.