Last Updated 3rd March 2001
[p191 - Souvenir brochure - Reigate Ring Meeting]
[p192]
The 74th meeting of the Morris Ring was held at Reigate from the 9th to the 11th of September, 1960; the hosts were the East Surry Morris Men; the headquarters for the meeting, where men met fed, feasted and slept, was the Royal Alexandra and Albert School, in Gatton Park. The Log here records the thanks of the Ring to the Governors and staff of the schools, particularly to the secretary, Mr. E.A. Corner, for the very comfortable housing enjoyed by the 280 men attending the meeting.
Men arriving on Friday evening found beer, coffee, and a mound of food in the Buffet Room of the hall building, in the ante-room of which booking-in by East Surry men made a pleasant beginning to the weekend; the East Surry Junior side acted as runners to take men to their quarters. Fed and rested, the earlier arrivals went to Reigate Hill; to dance at the Reigate Hotel, before the illuminated sign "Flowers Ales Lounge Bar," where soon after The Quaker had been danced, it was stated that there was no more beer; and at the Yew Tree. The evenings bag amounted
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to 28/-
On Saturday morning, after breakfast in the great hall, in the rich warm sunshine which is the special dispensation for Morris Men, ten tours moved away from the grounds of Gatton Park, in the order indicated in the Meeting’s Programme here attached, to forty sites; the first stand in this monumental list being Quality Street, and the last The Running Horse. It is reported to the Bagman that Tour 6 found Tour 8 stretched on the grass at the Hay Cutters, having its lunch; and Tour 8, being almost the entire audience, was not slow to make comment on the dancing, without contributing to the bag. Six men here danced Bledington Trunkles, and straightaway Young Collins.
At 3.30 p.m. all tours met at the Priory Park, Reigate, for a massed display. This variation in the pattern of meetings of the Ring was outstandingly successful. The sunshine had brought a large number of people to the park; and they formed an arena about thirty yards by forty, standing four or five deep. The Mayor and Mayoress, who had
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arrived in their official car just before half-past three, were conducted to their chairs, and the dancing began. The ten tours each presented one dance, which the East Surry Morris Men had hoped, with sublime confidence, the tours would rehearse during the day as follows: -
Tour1. Fieldtown Leapfrog
Tour 2. Beaux of London City, Adderbury
Tour 3. Queens Delight
Tour 4. William and Nancy
Tour 5. Constant Billy, Sherborne (with Tour 7)
Tour 6. Swaggering Boney
Tour 7. Constant Billy, Sherborne (with Tour 5)
Tour 8. Ring o’ Bells, Lichfield
Tour 9. The Quaker
Tour 10. Banks of the Dee
The massed dances, also arranged beforehand and stated in one of the pre-meeting circulars, were, Getting Upstairs, Jockey to the Fair, Brackley, Bobbing Joe, Lads a Bunchem Adderbury, Brighton Camp, and Bonny Green Garters. The Headington Morris Dancers, and the Abingdon Morris Men, gave individual displays; and the East Surrey Morris men danced Flowers of
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Edinburgh. Jim Phillips jigged Shepherd’s Hey; Nibs Matthews, Lumps of Plum Pudding; Len Bardwell, Old Mother Oxford. The audience, much taken with this pleasant show, and taking a hint from the obvious pleasure of their Mayor, made constant use of the collecting boxes and tins.
The Feast due to begin at Gatton Park at 5.30, was a little delayed by the failure of the Mayor to appear; indeed the men were sat down to soup before he arrived. As he came up the steps and through the doors of the hall the whole great company of 287 men stood to honour the first citizen of Reigate; who was not in the least put out to find that the function had begun without him, and sat down to his own share of tomato soup, chicken and cold sweet; but not for beer; he alone of the sixteen men on the top table having before him a jug of water.
The Squire, having proposed the loyal toast; and the toast to Cecil Sharp, drank in silence; then proposed the "The Ring," in some ten words. Gordon Neal replied. Lionel Bacon then proposed the health of the town of Reigate. In reply His Worship the Mayor of Reigate,
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Mr. H.J. Best, appropriated to the town all credit for the magnificent weather of the weekend; spoke of the loveliness of the afternoon’s morris in the Priory setting; gave thanks to the Ring on behalf of himself and the other guests; and stating that 1963 was the town’s centenary year, and that the programme for it was already in preparation, wondered if this great occasion could be repeated. Geoffrey Metcalf, proposing the health of East Surrey Morris Men, said he had that day toured where he had courted; and wondered if this were some scheme to rejuvenate him. He had been at one time a member of the East Surrey club; and took pleasure in thinking how the pre-war tours had grown into this great meeting. The meeting was well planned; the Feast of a high standard; and he asked the men to stand to drink the health of the East Surrey Morris Men, and to pay tribute to a first rate job. Peter Jones, the squire of the E.S.M.M., regretted that he must deprive the men of his prepared two thousand words of wit, but time pressed. He thanked Mr. Corner, the matron, and the other helpers to the success of this meeting. Fred Hutt, he
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said had been principal organiser; and Mrs. Hutt supporting, had provided food at all sorts of times for men discussing plans. Peter sat down to enormous applause from the men who had received so much from all the work of the E.S.M.M.
The Squire then presented their Staff of Association to the Green Man’s Morris of Birmingham, to the great applause of the Morris Men present.
Now, at the end of his two-year term of office, Jim Phillips rose to invite the Squire-Elect, Nibs Matthews, to assume the Squireship. He spoke of thinking of himself as representing all traditional sides, not just Headington. He adjured clubs to learn their dances, making use of the good instructors available; and to learn something of the history and background of the Morris. He then invested Nibs with the Squire’s regalia - great medallion, staff, and tankard, while the men applauded.
Nibs thus instituted, said that he had been dancing since he was eleven years old, and had known many of the old dances of days before the Ring was formed. He
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assured the company that his election as Squire was taken by him, and the staff of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, as a great compliment of that Society. He agreed with Jim’s remarks on making use of able instructors; and further, urged men to use their eyes. For example Jim’s jig at the Priory Park that afternoon contained many lessons for the young dancer. Turning to Jim, Nibs said that he knew Jim could dance, drink, and sing; and he invited him, forthwith, to do the last. So Jim sang The Village Pump. Then after the usual giving out of notices, the evening tours were away at 8 o’clock, and late.
These were as shown in the programme, except Colchester and Ravensbourne made an exchange (Tours D and F) This variation in the usual pattern of Ring Meetings, i.e., early Feast and organised tours subsequently, disclosed the difficulty of keeping vehicles together after dark. However, the men had enjoyable dancing at selected inns, returning to Gatton Park after closing hours.
On the Sunday morning after the usual representatives meeting, morris cars were directed along Gatton Bottom, Wray Lane, Croydon Road,
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to Bancroft Road car park, East Surry men being at various road junctions to help. The procession, in warm sunshine, Winstered and marched along Bell Street, Lesbourne Road, and Chart Lane, to the Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene. Here with a congregation so vast that rows of chairs had to placed in the aisles and the crossing, the Rev. G.A. Baker received staffs of association in the Ring from twenty Squires; these Squires then took their seats variously in vacant choir stalls or in the crossing, the latter getting full blast of the organ pipes. The preacher, curate, made an analogy between the steps of the morris and the steps man make towards God.
The moving colour of the Morris men emerging from the church, heightened as usual by the grey background of the building, was made more memorable by the brightness of a number of Morris creatures, left together by their several owners in an angle of a tower buttress. The men went through Church Walk to the car park; and there danced for a pleasant hour, whiled by ale, before returning to Gatton Park for the last meal of the meeting. As the men left for home afterwards, with the customary
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farewell and regrets, there was a warm felling of gratitude to the East Surry Morris Men, who had organised so well this outstanding meeting, the forth largest so far in the Ring's history.
The Bag, including programmes, was £129.7.4.
Clubs attending were Abingdon, Bedford, Benfleet Hoymen, Bristol, Burton, Chanctonbury Ring, Colchester, Coventry, Gloucester, Green Man’s Morris, Headington Quarry, Jockey, London Pride, London Rodney, Longstraw, Martlet, Mendip, Northampton, North Downs, Offley, Oxford City, Ravensbourne, Rumford, Stafford, St. Albans, Thames Valley, Westminster, Winchester, Woodside - 29 visiting clubs in all.
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