Woodside Stories

Somewhat against tradition, Woodside set out to woo the London crowds this St George’s Day (2009), only to find that many of them already had their hearts stolen by a bunch of Morris usurpers on their very first dance out. Dave Dunham recounts the events of that fine day in April...

St George’s day isn’t really the most traditional day for Morris dancers to dust off the bells and shake a stick at anyone, though there are a number of long running traditional meetings, such as Rose and Castle’s excellent gathering of the Morris at the Boat Inn, Stoke Bruerne, which I have had the pleasure of dancing and playing at on a number of occasions. The habit of popping out on 23 April then, for Woodside Morris Men, is one yet to really be developed, what with May Day but seven days hence.

Stir the stumps we non-the-less did, and moved our regular Southbank tour forward a few weeks, risking riskier weather, and a trip into the unknown realm of work-a-day midweek London. And frankly it paid off.

First of all, we were lucky with the weather. That was enormously important, and in many respects made the day; though a late call on the co-operation of Hay’s Galleria management also helped to get the day going with a swing. I had been struggling to get in touch with the right person at Hay’s and in the end we finally managed to pin down the right man just ten minutes ahead of starting dancing! I have always said that if I ever want something doing, it’s probably best to get someone else to do it.

Anyway, thanks to Hay’s Galleria, and their enthusiastic acceptance of the fine art of English folk dance; it was an excellent spot to start the day.

There’s more though! The dancing was delayed but a short time longer as Dancer Jon Checkley and musician Dennis O’Dell were presented with their badges, ending their time as Morris apprentices. Well done chaps.

Spurred on by such momentous news, the team crashed, almost literally, through the first few dances of our debut set of the burgeoning summer season. Things could surely only get better!

And they did, even as the Morris dust of winter settled on the paving stones of London, which are, incidentally, not paved in gold, but generally concrete – which was somewhat of a disappointment.

A few dances and a number of very satisfied school parties from three different continents later, and things were back to service as normal. As usual in London, there were many demands for photos, and many requests for information or clarification of a shaky knowledge of English folklore, my favourite was why were we doing Irish dancing to celebrate St George’s day. Harrumph.

We did a number of excellent spots, and Norman the Dragon enjoyed a great deal of attention, to the point where we could stop a dance half way through when he revealed himself to surrounding crowd. He’s always been a bit of a scene stealer in that way. It’s not often that we get kids clinging to his apron as we try to move on to the next spot though, and he was in so much demand that he didn’t make it to the final spot, the Founders Arms, until the rest of the team had been there for half an hour. But that just allowed a little beer time, on a day that had turned out to be totally sparkling, with a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere which the team were fully able to reflect in their attitude.

Anyway, when we got to the Founders, we found (no pun intended) that our blaze of glory along the Southbank had been usurped by a party of itinerant Morrisers bent on their very first public performances. It was very difficult to remonstrate with them though, as they all had such very disarming smiles – even the gnarly old musicians. This, frankly, was quite unfair.

The side were the Belles of London City, a name neatly derived in respect of the former team of their dance teacher (John Russell of Beaux of London City). Made up of three dancers, Alex, Ellen and Michelle, and, on this occasion, two musos, Jerry and Nick, they were all new to performing Morris dancing, with the exception of Ellen who had danced when she was very little.

It turns out that they had all been learning to dance at Cecil sharp House as part of  John Russell’s Tuesday night class (7.00-9.00pm, call John on 01753 866 001 for more details), and had decided to take the plunge and go for it in a big time manner, kit and everything.

We asked if they would join us in our Founders set and they did their bit, dancing some very enchanting Cotswold jigs, with a competence that had a few of us a little green eyed. They had a great blend of dance and music that belied the fact that this was their first time dancing out, and that the fiddle chaps were new to the game too (click here to visit the Belles’ MySpace homepage, where you can find the photos shown here and more).

The dancing was completed by way of a massed Bonny Green, and that was that. Though Woodside’s enjoyment of the day continued for many hours in the evening sunlight; striking up conversations with interested parties, many of whom had come out sporting red roses to commemorate St George’s day.

One particular group formed an especially strong St George’s day bond with the side; James (fine, upstanding fan of the Sarries!), Pip and Tim, briefly joined by James’ Christmas obsessive girlfriend, for whom we had to play a couple of Yuletide hits to keep happy, but she left anyway. We spent the best part of four hours chatting with the chaps, planning for James to come and sort out Woodside's chorus line with his choir leading skills, attempting to create new Morris related hit songs (Tim, it so happened, turned out to be Tim Benjamin, the classical composer) that would both delight and offend the music loving public, and of course, the desecration of a few folk standards, played by myself and Pete, and accompanied by James and Tim on Morris bells (a more discerning Pip had departed before things descended to this stage). The evening’s festivities came to an end soon after our final attempts to sing rude versions of a number of folk songs, James and Tim singing the lyrics from their mobile phone web browsers. If it had gone on much longer, incarceration by the local constabulary aside, I am sure we would have come up with the hit we were looking for! And if we had, Pip could have produced it for us, because he turned out to be legendary session man and producer (best known for his long association with Status Quo), Pip Williams.

It was a cracking day, in cracking weather, with cracking new Morris pals and some cracking good company.

Cracking.

Dave Dunham

The Belles of London City MySpace page
Tim Benjamin's (Composer) website

Photos on this page featuring The Belles of London City have been used with their kind permission and remain their own copyright.