We Take Dancing Seriously, But Not Ourselves

Tim Sexton, 57, Squire and Fool of the Chipping Campden Morris Men, introduced his son, Paddy, to the side.“I joined in 1981 and when my son Paddy came along we thought it would be a good idea to dress him up. At the age of 4 we had him pulling a cart at the Scuttlebrooke Festival.

“Paddy is quite a traditionalist, he has a British flag above his bed and he’s interested in British history. This feeling of Englishness, a lot of people mock it. A lot of people will mock morris dancers, but I say to them: ‘You try it, see how long you last’. It’s far more vigorous than a lot of people realise.”

Paddy Sexton, 22, trainee history teacher, said: “I have been dancing properly since I was 7. It was pretty much a question of putting on funny clothes and following your dad around. Whenever someone gets married and has a kid we are all hoping it will be a boy, another dancer. It’s a long-term game. When I started I was lucky to have friends doing it. I had a bit of trouble in school. Kids took the mickey. As we grew up people got used to it. Young people do sometimes find it embarrassing. As a country we tend to cast off our traditions. You take the dancing seriously but we don’t take ourselves seriously. People are so self-conscious now, about not doing the same thing as everyone else. I love it and hope to be dancing when I’m 60.”

Morris Dancing Thriving

ENCOURAGING youngsters and families to get involved has enabled a Chipping Campden group to buck a national trend that has seen membership of morris dancing sides declining.

Chipping Campden Morris Men, formed in 1750, has seen its membership grow to nearly 20 from less than 10 in the early 1980s.

The Morris Ring, a federation representing 200 such “sides”, warns morris dancing could become extinct within two decades because younger people are not getting involved as they find it uncool.

The average age of dancers is consequently advancing.

Tim Sexton, Chipping Campden Morris Men’s Fool, said his side started attracting younger members after he got his four-year-old son Paddy involved in 1981 when the youngster helped pull a cart at the town’s Scuttlebrooke Wake festival.

Its members are now aged from six up to their late 60s.

Tim said: “We’re bucking the trend of the sides from the Morris Ring.

“It’s the way that we encourage family involvement. If you get young kids at the age of five or six dancing it becomes ingrained; it’s what they do. They get peer pressure at school from people who say ‘that’s very girly’, it’s not manly. Whereas, in fact, it’s very manly.”

Tim believes the side is also thriving because of its long history.

He said: “We’re recognised by our peers as being one of the unbroken traditional sides.

“Chipping Campden morris dancing is also unique in its style; nobody else dances like us.”

For details the side, log onto chippingcampdenmorrismen.org.

70mph Wind Leave Trail of Destruction

THE Cotswolds was battered by ferocious winds of up to 70mph which left a trail of destruction across the district.

Over 100 trees were blown down by the gusts which hit much of the west on Saturday evening.

Chris Franklin, stakeholder manager at Gloucestershire Highways, said: "We received about 70 calls about fallen trees in the Cotswolds, which equated to 100 trees that had blown over, covering an area from Tetbury in the south to Chipping Campden and Willersey in the north.

"The Gloucestershire Highways emergency response teams were out clearing away the debris in order that the highway network could function with minimum disruption."

In Wiltshire the main road between Shipton Moyne and Malmesbury was blocked off for most of Sunday by several fallen trees and around 40 callouts were made to the county council’s highways department.

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