My mouth was dry, my heart pounded furiously. I had two silk sashes crossed over my chest and was being led towards my first public morris dance by a bunch of elderly men who jangled like a herd of exotic cows.
On a drizzle-soaked pavement outside the Church Inn in Mossley, Greater Manchester, we took our places like Lancastrian matadors, brandishing wooden sticks instead of swords. I had been building up to this moment for six months.
I had been asked to make a documentary about the crisis sweeping the morris dancing world. The oldest morris organisation, the Morris Ring, had stuck to its men-only tradition for nearly 100 years. But numbers were dwindling and some teams were facing extinction. Perhaps the way to resolve the problem was to invite women to join. A vote was called and a near century-old constitution was overturned.
To some purists, this was a kind of sacrilege. One of the folk world’s staunchest defenders of male-only morris, Barry Care from Moulton Morris Men, told me that female dancers had been doing “pound-shop copies” of the traditional male performance. He believes the aesthetic of men dancing is different from that of women dancing; that a man’s centre of gravity is different from a woman’s. For Barry, male morris dancing is like a high art, on a par with ballet, and shouldn’t be diluted by mixed sides where the ambition is simply to enjoy the experience of dance rather than make the audience gasp in appreciation.
Is Barry right? I met an all-women side who told me proudly they could out-dance any male side in the country, then drink them under the table. Windsor Morris women’s team are, to my mind, on a par with Barry’s Moulton for sheer vitality and technical ability – though we never went to the pub.
I fear both teams would have made mincemeat of my local side, which I had observed performing outside pubs near my home on a few occasions. The Manchester Morris men had an average age of 70 and owed much of their longevity to the NHS. I could see instantly how this side would benefit enormously from the introduction of women, but they were reluctant to change.
At first, I watched from the sidelines with a pint. But it wasn’t long before a man with flowers in his hat offered me hankies and showed me how to wave them around. I soon put my camera aside and joined in. Within a week, I was beneath the forensically harsh lighting of Stretford church hall, Manchester, and under the tutelage of Little George (as he’s affectionately known) who was teaching me the steps to Constant Billy, a morris classic. They go 1-2-hop, 1-2-hop, hop, hop, feet together, jump. I found it impossible.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped to George as he pressed stop for the umpteenth time on the CD player, emptying the cavernous hall of the sound of melodeons and penny whistles. “Take a minute,” said George, “you sound like you could do with a break.”
There’s an infant-like beauty to morris steps – folk dance involves a lot of waving and hopping and skipping. But the nursery-rhyme simplicity is highly deceptive. Getting the hopping right is a challenge equivalent pointe technique in ballet. Not enough spring in your step and you are simply walking; too much lift and you find yourself skipping. Somewhere in between exists that rarest and almost indefinable thing – the perfect hop. I watched in awe at practice nights as Bruce, the team’s oldest member, seemed to achieve weightlessness, levitating ever so slightly above the ground. He has had both hips replaced: maybe there’s a connection.
Three months after the Morris Ring vote, only one side had changed its policy on women. Pete Simpson, the incoming squire of the Ring, had told me about a West Country team that had taken on a woman, but clammed up when I asked which one it was. I was further intrigued by the side that had actually proposed the motion inviting women to join. Leicester Morris Men’s “bagman”, Charlie Corcoran, describes himself as a “reformed misogynist” and it was his idea to bring women into the Ring. But his side was choosing to stay men-only, which struck me as odd, as if Emmeline Pankhurst had chosen not to vote after campaigning so hard to get universal suffrage for all women.
But the more time I spent with my teammates in Manchester, the more I noticed the important role morris plays in the lives of men. It offers a different version of masculinity from the standard ones. Of course, there is nothing wrong with men dancing together without women. I think you also have to consider that it’s deeply incongruous to see men attired with bells and hankies but much less so for women. When you watch an athletic masculine side, like Barry’s Moulton Morris, smash their sticks to smithereens, you get an insight into the real essence of what male morris is. The discordancy of effeminate details with brute force is what makes it so engrossing. I was never lucky enough to see a young Frank Bruno dressed up as a panto dame, but perhaps the effect would have been similar.
More than that, there is an earthiness to morris that fights the comic stereotype of pot-bellied, bearded men with hankies and bells. At different points in history, it’s even been a rebellious counterculture. I had a strange moment during one festival when I was swept along on a tide of flower-waving folkies processing towards a church for a sacrilegious solar rite. For a moment, each face seemed to beam back at me with love and adoration while the morris sea carried me up the hill towards the steeple. I felt like Edward Woodward being led inescapably on his joyous musical journey to meet the Wicker Man.
Which is why it was such a relief to be making my public dance debut with the solidly down-to-earth Manchester team. I had grown a real affection for this taciturn group of morris vets over the last six months. Men’s morris dancing might be on the endangered list. But perhaps that’s a risk worth taking for those who wish the form to remain male only. They aren’t really excluding women; they’re just choosing to be men only together. And men need a place to be men in a place that isn’t a football terrace or a sports field.
Certainly, it’s a skill that requires the time to forge a relationship with your team. When I look back at the film of my first public performance outside the Church Inn, I see a tall, ungainly man dressed in high red socks, a black cummerbund and gold and red sashes crossing his chest. He’s holding two sticks and looks nervous. When the music starts, he begins the steps alongside his five team-mates. He’s just about keeping time but something’s not quite right. On closer inspection, I notice the man is not hopping. He’s skipping.