cover.pdf 1 03/11/2009 12:03:39 cover.pdf 1 03/11/2009 12:03:39 what’s afoot title & logo to No.be inserted 93 as for previous Summer/Autumnissues. 2010 No. 93 Summer/Autumn 2010 50p No. 93 SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010 DEVON FOLK MAGAZINE www.devonfolk.co.uk All articles, letters, photos, and diary What’s Afoot No. 93 dates & listings Contents diary entries free Local Treasure: Mike Boston 4 Jo Trapnell: Retiring at Sixty 9 Please send to Old Devonshire Dances 10 Colin Andrews Tivvy Ho ! 12 Bonny Green, Instrument Amnesty 14 Morchard Bishop, Footnotes 15 Crediton, EX17 6PG Devon Folk News 16 Tel/fax 01363 877216 Devon Folk Committee 17 [email protected] Contacts: dance, music & song clubs 19 - 23 Copy Dates Diary Dates 25 - 29 Contacts: display, festivals, bands, callers 31 - 37 1st Feb for 1st April Reviews 38 - 48 1st June for 1st Aug Morris Matters 49 1st Oct for 1st Dec Advertising Enquiries & copy to: As agged up in the last issue of What’s Afoot, the price of the magazine will increase to £1 as from November, 2010. This is very Dick Little much in line with comparable folk magazines from other parts of Collaton Grange, the country, and which we hope still represents excellent value. Malborough. The magazine will continue to be sold through clubs, but why not Kingsbridge TQ7 3DJ get it sent to your door regularly. for an annual subscription of £5, Tel/fax 01548 561352 which includes postage and Devon Folk membership. [email protected] Rates Over the past year the Devon Folk Committee have been looking Full page £27 Half £16.50 at publicity and membership issues. A motion which would Quarter £10 Eighth* £5 have removed free membership for EFDSS members and clubs Lineage* £3 for 15 words in Devon was rejected at the AGM, but hopefully the information (*min. 3 issues) set out on page 34 will make membership categories, costs, and Please enclose cheque entitlements much clearer. payable to “Devon Folk” with Devon Folk is a voluntary organisation which gives both nancial all orders and adverts assistance and expert advice in support of number of festivals, Distribution & workshops and school projects within the county. We would Subscriptions welcome your support in helping us to continue and expand such activities. Please consider joining as a club or individual. Jean Warren 51, Green Park Road, Colin Andrews(Editor) Plymstock, Plymouth, Cover photograph : Great Western Morris Collage - courtesy of PL9 9HU Mike Boston 01752 401732 Individual copies What’s Afoot is published 3 times a year by Devon Folk. 50p + S.A.E. /45 p A5 Please note that the views expressed are not necessarily Subscription (see form) those of the Editor nor of Devon Folk. Devon Folk is £3 per 3 issues) an af liate of the English Folk Dance & Song Society (registered charity number 305999). The Editor & Devon Bulk orders (pre-paid) Folk accept no liability for the content of copy supplied £5 per 10 incl. p&p by advertisers Printed by Hedgerow Print, Crediton. Tel. 01363 777595 3 Local Treasure Mike Boston, Exeter born and bred, has been Have you ever tried any other form of Morris ? the fool of the city’s high energy, high capering Great Western are essentially a Cotswold side , Great Western Morris for many years. Colin and I believe we have quite a reputation for our Andrews caught up with him in his home in ‘distinctive’ interpretation of the Fieldtown and Crediton. This article rst appeared in the Bampton traditions. Again huge thanks are due Morris Federation Newsletter, Winter 2009. to Roy Dommett for his encouragement and I have always regarded you and GWM as teaching. I’m not sure we would be where we are inseparable. Were you a founder member? today had it not been for Roy. We’ve developed some new dances in these styles over the years, No, the side started in 1969 and celebrate their but never gone along the route of inventing a 40th year dancing out in 2010. Originally known whole new tradition, like some sides. Following as the Courage Morris Men, in the vain hope of some workshops in the late 70’s / early 80’s getting sponsorship from the brewery of with Roy Dommett, we began to include that name who owned the Jolly Porter a few border dances in our repertoire to pub where they practised. I joined perform in public in the winter. We’ve them in 1975 after I moved back to also danced rapper sword, and got Devon to take up a teaching post involved with mumming. at South Molton Community College. Since then I have, What gives you the greatest at various times been Squire, pleasure in your dancing? Bagman, Foreman and mostly It’s the whole chemistry of Fool. Never Treasurer! GWM really – the team spirit, So what rst aroused your the exchange of ideas, sometimes interest in taking up Morris quite bizarre, the interaction with dancing? the audience, the rows. It’s always the Squire who has the nal say, I’d been interested in folk music however, in what we do. A good since my school days in Exeter, example was in 2005 at Towersey. rst at The Mill, then at the Jolly We were due to perform at the headline Porter and then as a student in London Sunday evening ceilidh spot. When we heard and Leicester, where I was involved in at 6.40 that England had regained the Ashes, our organising folk clubs. I moved to Norwich in carefully rehearsed conventional display went out 1973, and since I couldn’t sing or play, a good the window, and we adopted a cricketing theme friend Alex Atterson, insisted that I’d better take in celebration, dancing with twelve quickly up morris dancing and introduced me to the prepared cardboard cricket bats and added a few foreman and squire of Kemp’s Men. They were cricket based embellishments to the set. No time a brilliant bunch of men, very much a typical for a rehearsal. 1950’s revival Cotswold side. But they were ercely independent, welcoming, open minded, How would you answer those who may criticise mostly teachers and would have nothing to do playing too much to the audience? with the Ring. They were really supportive and Audience involvement is a very important part of had a wonderful ensemble approach to teaching the Great Western experience, and it’s certainly a and bringing on beginners. They gave me the key factor in my personal enjoyment of Morris. con dence to think that morris teams could In whatever we do, though, we always aim for a encompass a variety of styles. Unfortunately I had high standard of dancing. My greatest dislike, and only one dancing season in the eighteen months I something I’d gladly see abolished from public was with them - but two of practice! display is what I call the ‘Twelve Foot Wall 4 Syndrome’. That’s where a side dances with total disregard for their audience, so that even if they were cut off from view by a twelve foot wall erected between them and the audience, it AMYCROFTERS wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the performance. For this reason, I’m not fond of BAND being a Morris spectator. On tours for example, I nd it dif cult to comprehend how any side Lively & Fun for Barn Dances, can ignore interaction with the audience. Even in the formal setting of a festival or theatre stage Folk Dances & Folk Dance Clubs it’s still possible to establish a rapport with the audience. CALLER AVAILABLE Are there any particular events that stand out as IF REQUIRED high spots in your Morris career? Contact In 35 years of involvement with Morris, there have been many memorable and inspiring Andrew Mycroft occasions, such as dancing in the Arena at Sidmouth or performing in the Opera House 01404 46451 in Brno, in the Czech Republic or Brooklyn Heights in New York which included a surreal and highly enjoyable encounter with a New [email protected] York cop. We have visited South-West France www.amycrofters.co.uk and Brittany on several occasions. Near to home we have two wonderful local and bizarre places spot of my dancing years was also down to the to ‘dance’; Haytor Rocks and Postbridge, on the stilts, from the time I fell from them and broke iron age clapper bridge. Both bonkers places my wrist, elbow and shoulder on the surface of a really. Being lmed dancing inside the bar at Kent car park. I remember waking up in hospital the Drewe Arms, Drewsteignton (height about wondering whether I was in heaven or hell when I 6 foot, ok for me but the rest of them …). A saw Chris Rose, still in his 7 Champions Molly wonderful lunchtime at the Zetland in Warwick- kit, clumping down the ward in his hobnail boots. Thank you Sally. I suppose the weirdest place I would have loved a video camera! was dancing, at the invitation and instigation of Roy Dommett in the Roman amphitheatre at What advice would you give to any newly formed Caleva Atrebatum – Silchester. Nobody there, dance team? just us and Roy. Completely surreal! Brilliant Bit presumptuous really to give advice but acoustics though. But I suppose you can’t I suppose I’d say – and this applies to some talk about high spots without mentioning the existing sides –enjoy your dancing and be seen occasions when we performed on stilts.