The Morris Federation

Mayday is where it all begins for me.

I joined the Priston Jubilee Morris last December for a ‘taster session’ and haven’t been kicked out yet, so I agreed to join them all at dawn on the top of a blustery local hill just outside of Bath. I’m not sure how I managed to get out of bed some time around 4am, but an hour later I was with the gang, gathering in readiness to climb the short but steep incline to One Tree Hill.

I was glad I’d heeded the advice of the veteran members and worn my thermals and come equipped with wooly hat and mittens, as the breeze on the hilltop was quite bracing. My hands almost froze to my viola during the first two dances, but a quick trip to Idbury Hill soon warmed me up again.

Dancing in walking boots is not the easiest or most dignified of performances, especially amongst potholes and cow-pats that try to twist your ankle at every opportunity. However, trying not to take my opposite’s eye out with a waver being blown quite briskly in his direction was something else I hadn’t come prepared for either, but somehow I muddled through.

The whole event went by in a flash and after a quick tot on top of the hill to marvel in the dawn, we returned to the Ring O’ Bells pub in Priston, where Ben the landlord had kindly managed to join in the early shenanigans by cooking us a hearty breakfast. This was very much appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed by all.

However, the dawn wasn’t to be forgotten quite so quickly. Between the dancing there had been lots of posing on the hill, as we were joined by a local photographer (Matt Cardy), who most of us thought was documenting the event for the local papers. How shocked was I later at work, when I was finally ‘outed’ by a colleague who spotted me, my hat and my viola on the BBC web site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7377173.stm

And then my legs became famous on the Guardian web site in their ’24 Hours in Pictures’ which they state as “A selection of the best images from around the world”. Not bad publicity for a small village in the Westcountry: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/may/01/1?picture=333859837

But how had Matt got his images so far and wide in such a short space of time? Well, he’d uploaded 18 of his best images from our performance onto Getty Images, and the rest is web site history:
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=1&language=en-US&family=editorial&p=One%20Tree%20Hill%20morris&src=standard

Not to be outdone, the local web site for Priston also featured a long-distance shot of us on top of One Tree Hill, with the village church displaying the exact time of our dawn display: http://www.priston.org.uk/morris_sunrise_2008.html

As a first day out dancing, it couldn’t have been a better warm-up for the weekend ahead, where lots more posing and gesturing from myself along with the rest of the Priston side is to follow across the May bank holiday at Bath Spring Flower Show (Sat 3rd), Folly Farm Open Day (Sun 4th) and Priston May Day (Mon 5th).

For me, it seems, the Mayday dawn has become symbolic of more than just the beginning of Spring…