Joseph Deuce 80. They used, to have three sides at one time.
One side composed of one family named Fisher.
Joseph and his two brothers used to dance, 20 years since they stopped.  He danced ever so many years.
No sticks, only hanks.
Drum and pipe or fiddle.
Very proud of it and very proud of Ducklington Morris. Neither Bampton nor Field Town so clean as we.

We had clean shirts every morning.
He mentioned Jockie, Princess Royal, Nutting Girl, Old Woman (set dance) and Trunkles.

He sang several tunes and danced Trunkles with me.. Very much as ours, but with more sets of capers.
John Lanksbury played pipe and tabor as well as fiddle.
We used to learn our songs and dances at the plough tail.  Often used to whistle for dancing.

"Always had dinner first before I whistled or it made my head ache."
Insisted on straight leg in the Morris step.
Set-dancing as different from Morris as chalk from cheese.
In Morris dancing it was 1, 2, 3 all day long. 
They usually danced Mon., Tues and Wed in Whitsun week.
Began each morning at 8 O'clock by dancing Green Garters round Maypole, before going away for the day's outing.

May pole put up every in different place in village.
A tall pole. stuck firmly in the ground and a long thinner pole tied to the top of it, in all 20 or 60 feet high. 

Decorated with Laylocks and Golden Chain (Laburnam) two ribbons on the top to blow about.

No ribbons; to blow and dance round with.. Some would dance through a pair of shoes in the three days outings.
They had a man who carried sword and cake. Also a fool.
The latter a very good one. On arriving at a farm he would spit on his hands and say, "Here we be come again Ma'am. 

Want a drop of your nice beer Ma'am".
Generally out of pocket over the dancing -"mush shure, to"

Balance the Straw was one or their jigs. They used to sing to Shepherd's Hey
I can whistle
And I can play
I can dance
The Shepherd's Hey.

Plaited shirts, diagonal scarf,  high hat with ribbons.  Trousers or white breeches "as white as their boots".
"One dancer was as stiff as a poker he was. He could make the bells rattle."
Used to buy bells at Stow Fair
Occasionally danced at a fillabo (?) but usually only at Whitsuntide
Practised from Easter to Whitsun twice a week
Great taking now about Morris.   "It'd be a living in London now these days I'm thinking.


DUCKLINGTON MORRIS. 4th April 1912.
Joseph Druce (80) said all the old Morris men were dead but him.  All the Fishers (not Oliver) had now gone.

He was very interested in the Morris because he had seen some recentlv introduced by girls in Ducklington.
Of this he didn't approve. He said "Girls have got things for their use and men have got things for their use and
the Morris is for men." Duckleton (as he called it) was the best in the district.  
They were "never afraid, they knew they's never be captured". Talked a lot about Old Tyler or Taylor (old Trunko).
Also about "Boys of the Bunch" - "Lads a Bunchum" "we used to call it".  This was a single dance with corners. 
The latter advanced and then changed places with "a gallev and one caper". 
Then they did the "foot-up" again facing fiddler, and then a step or two and then all over again, 
corners getting back to places.
"When I was a ploughboy then I could run about all day." Now I can't. Balancy Straw one of the jigs. 
Nutting Girl another. "Then we used to learn the song and then there was no trouble for the steps are just as the words
be". Princess Royal a jig.
Did jigs altogether. Stood up in column facing fiddler as in foot-up.  Nos. I and 2 danced first figure then fell back, 
while Nos. 3 and 4 did ditto.  The latter fell back while Nos. 5 and 6 repeated it. Then we'd hey away. 
After that repeated it with capers and so on.
Drum and pipe much better music than the fiddle. Green Garters round Maypole thus
							1	   2
							3        4	with pole in the middle
							5        6

First foot-up with galley back, then face down, then go round pole half-way and then back. Then hey away.
                                1/2 rounds 
					1 st time side step
					2nd "  half capers
					3rd	"	whole capers
Hey away in between half-rounds and then ended up with hey with "kipper out". (Evidently same as The Rose).
They never danced when young. They began about 20 and then they could stand it; "but they couldn't manage it before".
Practised two night a week between Easter and Whitsunday.  
Often had alot of people looking on "as many as though it were a play".
Stopped about 30 years ago. I was then the youngest of 'em. All the others now dead.
William Jerden. His father was fore-man and ultimately kept the public house, The Bell. 
Never danced himself but very interested in it. They always had a Maypole.  
Often put up on Green in front of The Bell.  At 3 a.m. on Whit Monday three men went out and cut withys, 
peeled them and made three peeling-horns, and played them till 4 a.m.  They made a noise like a hooter.
No pins in the horns, only blackthorns. Then they "rose" the pole at 4 a.m. when Morris men dancing round it.
They danced round it every morning before they started out on their rounds "for luck". 
Once when his father had given up dancing he was sitting with an old man in front of his door. 
The Morris men were going away down the road. He asked them where they were, going.  They said "Bampton".  
When they had gone a little way the old man very perturbed got up and shouted out Come back. This they did. 
Then he asked them where they were going. When they had told him he said 
"Well when you come back there will be no pole there "Whv?" they asked.  
"Because I shall cut it down". Then they remembered they hadn't danced round it 
Whereupon without another word the piper struck up and they danced Green Garters and then went off!
In the evening when they came home they danced in a barn, ale at one end, 
people at the other sitting at tables smoking and drinking - there were no license laws then! 
In the middle the Morris men danced. This was called a "Youth ale". He said "youth" meant "young men.
The Morris was given up because people "had got so proud". 
When the men got too old to continue there was no one to take their places.
The dancers wore calico shirts under their pleated linen ones. 
These latter were beautifully ironed by one particular woman. They also wore white trousers, 
as white as curd made of Jane, stuff, as white as doe skin trousers such as navvies use, but thinner. 
What officers wear. Always danced in tall hats. They were all "so clean in their dancing. 
They used to put their steps in so neatly - there's no doubt the fiddler had a lot to do with that". 
Starve the Lad a favourite jig.
Old Fisher (92) just dead.