Mr Hemmings Day of Dance took place on Saturday, and attracted ten different teams, and so was one of the biggest ever – even bigger than the World Cup quarter finals. Les Badcock, the leader of the Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers, does a lot of the organising, and helped put together this big event.
It took place on the same day as the Yeah Baby charity music festival, so there was a lot happening in town. and it was hot, hot, hot and the dancers were glad to find a bit of shade at the Abbey Gateway.
The troop in green are The Oyster Girls, a clog dancing side all the way from the Isle of Wight. They crossed the sea to be here. Many thanks to them.
Dancers also found a cool shady area under the old County Hall. Pictured here are Masons Apron, a group originally from the Masons Arms in Headington, who have migrated to Long Hanborough over time.
Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers was formed in 1978, with local men who had previously danced with the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers.
In the last two years the Mr Hemmings group has opened up to women.
Another group on the day were the Garston Gallopers from East Garston in the valley of the race horse – a sport followed by Royalty.
Other groups included Bampton, Lepton Morris, Three Horse Shoes Morris, Ashnah American Tribal Style Belly Dancing, Mabel Gubbins: Rapper sword dancers and Stroud Morris. Stroud Morris are pictured above in the green and red jester tights – the green is for the hills, and the red for the famous red Stroud cloth.
P.S I have just requested my internet host to add a SSL certificate onto this site in moving with the times. The internet host will have to migrate it to a different server to make that work. If there are any problems in the migration the blog will move temporarily to twitter @abingdonblog.
Ah, Mr Heamings traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers, uniquely Abingdon – another thing that was unique to Abingdon was the VWHDC offices, until the much heralded money saving merger with SODC was announced followed by a move to sharing offices at SODC hq in Crownarsh, until that was torched by a resident unhappy about a planning decision ! With no home both councils moved to a shared building at Milton Park where shortly after they announced a “facility sharing” scheme with 3 other councils (one miles away) that would save them £9 million!
A month ago the same planning team that inspired an angry resident to burn their offices down announced their ultimate wisdom had cost council over £2 million in expenses for fighting ( and losing) a planning decision!
Today SODC have announced they plan to rebuild ( at no doubt double the initial estimate) the Crowmarsh bonfire site despite there being every chance both councils will be scrapped when we go unitary!
Oh and i forgot to mention they’ve just announced they’re abondoning the £9 million money saving merger because it’s projected to cost them considerably more than the £9 million they thought they’d save !
This is why governments at every level need to be kept very, very small.
Whatever you give them, they tend to waste a large proportion.
If you purchased your daily bread in the way these councils carry on, there would be a lot of rich bakers yet not much bread sold.
Whatever government spends, someone first had to earn.
Does every post have to be turned into something political? This post is about the good of Morris dancing ……..
Well done Mr Hemmings Morris dancers and visiting teams who danced their way round Abingdon in the scorching heat. Very entertaining, looked great fun and you all deserved those delicious ice cold pints in each visited pub. Look forward to next year!
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