![](\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025062401.jpg\")
\nI met Frank on Saturday, the day of the Mayor of Ock Street. He told me a few of his Morris Dancing memories. <\/p>\n
\nI met Frank on Saturday, the day of the Mayor of Ock Street. He told me a few of his Morris Dancing memories. <\/p>\n
He was with the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers up until 1956 \u2014 that makes him one of the oldest ex-dancers still about. He got into it when he was at Boxhill School \u2014 him and half a dozen other lads. It meant missing a lesson for an hour. Next thing, because he was good enough, he was dancing with the regular side.<\/p>\n
He remembers a young Stuart Jackson \u2014 he was the mascot back then. Stuart went on to be the Mayor of Ock Street many times, and now is President.<\/p>\n
Frank was dancing in Conduit Road one day when Prince Philip drove past. The Queen and him were in Abingdon to reopen the County Hall Museum. The Prince did a double take when he saw the Morris Dancers in all their kit. Must\u2019ve thought, \u2018Whats going on here?\u2019<\/p>\n
There was a big Morris ring meeting over in Buckinghamshire one year and Slim Mooring was the fool. He had a pig\u2019s bladder, same as Roger Cox carries now, and went about bopping people with it. He got near this policeman \u2014 who was there to keep the crowds in order \u2014 and raised the bladder as if to bop him. The policeman just gave him a look, as if to say, \u2018You just try it, and see where it gets you.\u2019<\/p>\n
They had lots of Americans in those days, from the airbase. They loved all the old English traditions and used to stand and watch the dancing and throw coins, half crowns sometimes. <\/p>\n
Major Frier played the accordion and he\u2019d drive the dancers round in his old maroon charabanc. It looked more like a hearse than a bus.<\/p>\n
And poor Jimmy Grimsdale. One day he sat on a bag of cherries in his white Morris trousers. He didn\u2019t realise until it was too late and a great big red embarrassing patch bloomed on his backside all day.<\/p>\n
When Frank was sixteen, he looked at the older dancers \u2014 some nearing forty \u2014 and thought, \u2018They\u2019ll never get through the day!\u2019 But even though they could hardly walk, they kept on dancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I met Frank on Saturday, the day of the Mayor of Ock Street. He told me a few of his Morris Dancing memories. He was with the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers up until 1956 \u2014 that makes him one of the oldest ex-dancers still about. He got into it when he was at Boxhill School […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}