People to 1969 | Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers

The men who have been Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers and the Mayor of Ock Street (up to 1969)

The earliest press reference we have found, from the Berkshire Chronicle of 25th June 1825, refers to the victory in the fight for the Horns in 1700 and the subsequent privilege of the people of Ock Street “to parade the town the day succeeding the Ock Street fair, with moris-dancers, accompanied by a mayor chosen by themselves”. But there is no record of the names of any of these very early dancers or mock mayors.

The first press report of the election of the Mayor of Ock Street is in the Berkshire Chronicle of 27th June 1835, which names the winner that year to be Thomas Leonard. According to census data he was born in 1804, was a weaver in 1841, and appears to have died before 1851.

The next person involved in the Abingdon morris to be named in the local press is James Moreton, in the Reading Mercury of 29th June 1844. This reports that he ” was acting the part of clown to some Morris dancers, who, according to ancient custom, amuse the public on the day following Ock-street fair, when his performances were somewhat abruptly terminted by the appearance of a police officer armed with a warrant for his apprehension”. According to census data he was born in 1792 and in 1851 was a flax dresser.

Thomas Hemmings is reported in the Berkshire Chronicle of 3rd July 1880 as having been again elected as Mayor of Ock Street “by a number of Morris Dancers”. Jackson’s Oxford Journal of Saturday 20th June 1885 reports that a written announcement was displayed in Ock Street stating that “Thomas Hemming, the Mayor of Ock-street, who was appointed in 1840, has resigned, after serving office for 25 years and dancing 20; and that during this present month his son William had been appointed in his stead”. This is generally taken to mean that he joined the morris dancers in 1840, in 1860 was elected Mayor of Ock Street, and kept the post for 25 years. According to census data he was born in 1815, died in August 1885 and was a labourer of various sorts over the years. There is in our archives a photograph of him in later life which is the earliest one we have of anyone associated with the Abingdon morris. Thomas is the earliest dancing Hemmings we can trace and he had several sons that were associated with the morris. These were:

Thomas Hemmings (1841 – 1899), a dancer. When his father died, his eldest son Thomas was not appointed Mayor of Ock Street, so it would be likely that he was no longer an active dancer in 1885.
William Hemmings (1849-1930), who succeded his father as Mayor of Ock Street in 1885, though he lost it to Charles Cox in 1893, then reclaimed the title in the 1900s. His son known as John or Jack was photographed holding the mace (mazer) in 1910.
James Hemmings (1854-1935), who with his brother William kept the morris tradition alive in the early 1900s, becoming Mayor of Ock Street in 1929, just before his brother’s death. At least 4 of James’ sons (Tom, Jim, Joe and George) were associated with the morris.
George Hemmings (1852 – ?1928) also known as Dolly, was a dancer up to about 1900.
Henry Hemmings (1858-1945) was a step dancer rather than a morris dancer, but in the 1930s revival was appointed Mayor of Ock Street (1937), then re-elected twice. He is reputed to have fathered at least 15 children (some said more). Two of his sons (Charles and Percy) were dancers in the 1930s.
John Hemmings (1860 – ?1903) was a dancer also known as Jack.

It is fair to say that the original Thomas Hemmings (1815-1885) was the ancestor of all the dancing Hemmings that followed him. A family tree in Appendix 1 shows these connections through to the present day, where there are just three fairly mature descendants of the direct Hemmings line still associated with one of the two present Abingdon morris teams.

Apart from the above Hemmings, the only other Abingdon dancer listed by Keith Chandler as dancing before 1900 is Robert Henry Martin (b 1860). A Robert Henry Martin is also listed as one of the dancers in 1910, but this is almost certainly the son (b 1883) of the older dancer with exactly the same name.

The Oxford Chronicle of 24th June 1893 reported that a man named Cox defeated a man called Hughes in the election of the Mayor of Ock Street. Research by the Cox family revealed that this was Charles Cox, a carpenter, the great-great-uncle of Roger Cox, who was Mayor 2007-2013. No Hemmings stood in that election: William Hemmings, who had asssumed the title of Mayor in 1885, was around this time living in Sutton Wick, not Ock Street, and his wife had just died the year before.

In 1909 Mary Neal contacted the brothers William and James Hemmings and collected some dances and tunes from them (to be taught to the Esperance Club girls in London). The Hemmings brothers went to London to teach the dances, and in May 1910 they took part in a concert in Kensington Town Hall. In April 1910, Cecil Sharp visited the Hemmings brothers but did not at that time get enough information to publish any Abingdon dances in his first edition of the Morris Book. These events seemed to trigger a revival of morris dancing in Abingdon after a lapse of about 10 years. The North Berks Herald of 25th June 1910 reported the personnel taking part in the Mayor’s Day dancing as: “….W. Hemmings, son of a former “Mayor”, was recognised as still holding office and his deputy was G. Wake, a Crimean veteran, one carrying the sword and the other the cup. The “squire” was C.Nobes, the grandson of a former Morris dancer, and the six dancers, wearing bells, ribbons, etc were James Hemmings (an old performer), T.Hemmings, John Hemmings, Dalton, and two others named Hudson. A fiddler completed the party….”. William, James and John Hemmings were sons of the original Thomas Hemmings (b 1815). The T.Hemmings here is Tom Hemmings (b 1887), son of James Hemmings. The fiddler was Tommy Boswell, also known as Gypsy Lewis, an itinerant musician who lived outside Abingdon and who died in August 1910. A colourful character, he is described in more detail in Appendix 2.

There is a photograph from 1910 which is thought to be the earliest one of the Abingdon morris. In the past some have suggested it might be 1912 or even 1902 (the 1912 date was apparently written on a copy of the photo), but the fiddler in the photo (Tommy Boswell / ‘Gypsy’ Lewis) died in August 1910 and so it cannot be any later than 1910. Combining the reports of Jonathan Leach and Keith Chandler, the personnel in this photo were:

Dancers: James Hemmings, Tom Hemmings (son of James), Joe (Jack) Hemmings (son of James), Robert Henry (Bob) Martin, George (Stodger) Hudson and his brother Albert (Bertie) Hudson.
Sword and box: William Hemmings (at that date Mayor of Ock Street), also described as Billy Hemmings the ‘King of Ock Street’.
Horns: William (Willie) Belcher
Mace: John (or Jack) Hemmings (son of William)
Fiddler: Thomas Boswell / ‘Gypsy’ Lewis

The photo is probably posed rather than an ‘action shot’ which might explain why the dancers seem to be doing different steps and facing in different directions. Only James, Tom and William Hemmings are dressed in all white. The other four dancers have white shirts but dark trousers. All dancers plus the hornbearer have bells and hats decorated with flowers, all have top hats apart from Joe (Jack) Hemmings who has a decorated straw hat (boater).

Nothing is known of the man called Dalton in the press article of 1910, and there is a possibility his name was misreported and he might actually have been Bob Martin. It is known that Bob Martin lived to a good age but would not discuss the morris with anyone. Hudson was a surname known in Ock Street, as both the landlords of the Happy Dick and the Ock Street Horns at the time were called Hudson.

More biographical details of the men in the 1910 photograph are given in Appendix 2.

World War 1 came and by early 1916 conscription came in for men aged 18 to 41 unless unfit or in a special (reserved) occupation. In 1918 the age limit was raised to 51, and conscription was extended to 1920. So most of the Abingdon dancers would probably have been conscripted unless they were born before 1867, or were unfit, or in a special occupation, or had volunteered earlier. The Roll of Honour for Abingdon lists all those who served between 1914 and 1919, and from it we find that:

Tom Hemmings was in the army (Royal Flying Corps) and then the RAF from 1915 until 1919.
Joe (Joseph) Hemmings from 123 Ock Street joined the 8th Royal Berks in Feb 1916 and was killed in France 22nd July 1916 aged 25. His brother Walter, who did not dance as far as we know, was killed in action in 1917, aged 34.
The John or Jack Hemmings who was the macebearer in 1910 was actually Ernest John Hemmings of 38 Winterbourne Road, who was the son of William Hemmings. He joined the 8th Royal Berkshire Regiment in October 1916 and was killed in action in France 23rd October 1918, having the rank of Lance Corporal.
There are two Albert Hudsons listed, both with an Ock Street address. Both survived the war but both were wounded and ended their service before the end of the war.
The only George Hudson listed had a Thames Street address and was lost at sea in June 1916.
Robert Martin from Cemetery Road was wounded in Sept 1918. He is remembered as still living in Abingdon in the 1930s.
There are two entries for a William Belcher, neither of whom lived in Ock Street at the time. Both survived the war.

Of the others identified in the 1910 photograph, Tommy Boswell had died in 1910 and William and James Hemmings would have been too old to serve in the forces.

After the war, there was no active morris dancing for a long time, but the brothers James and William Hemmings were visited once again by Cecil Sharp in September 1922 and this time he managed to collect some dances and tunes. He later recreated the Abingdon Princess Royal dance and presented it to a meeting of the English Folk Dance Society in November 1922, at which he took a collection to buy a concertina for William Hemmings, who had gone blind and fallen on hard times. The Oxford Journal Illustrated of 3rd January 1923 (p3) has a photo of William & James Hemmings with this concertina. The text starts: “The Hemmings Bros., of Ock-street, Abingdon, who are the oldest Morris dancers living.”

William continued to decline in health and fortune, and some time in the 1920s his daughter Nellie wrote to Mary Neal asking if she could send her father a “Christmas Box” even if it was only a small postal order. Mary Neal passed this letter on to the folk collector Clive Carey and it is now in the Vaughan Williams Library – in her covering note Mary Neal says that she has sent “the awful old cadger” 3 shillings. The North Berks Herald of 17th January 1930, page 5, reported William’s recent death aged 82 at the Abingdon Poor Law Infirmary.

William’s younger brother James by contrast seems to have prospered in the post war period and had his own business. He lived at 123 Ock Street and in September 1929 he seems to have been created Mayor of Ock Street in a ceremony in the back yard of the Cross Keys. Photos of this event were taken by a London agency (Fox) and appeared in the Daily Mirror and Birmingham Daily Gazette. There were rumours that Mary Neal had been involved in setting this up, but no hard evidence of that exists (she apparently had no contact with morris or folk dancing after the Great War). It seems that James became Mayor of Ock Street even though his brother William (who had assumed the title after their father’s death) was still alive. If the event was designed to get the election of the Mayor of Ock Street and the morris dancing going again, it did not work immediately. James died in January 1935 aged 80; his death was reported in the North Berks Herald of 18th January 1935 (p1).

On Monday 6th May 1935 there was a Silver Jubilee procession in Abingdon and the morris dancers were invited to join the parade with the Horns. A photograph exists showing 6 Abingdon morris men taking part in it (in High Street), dressed in normal ‘best suits’, but all are wearing top hats with ribbons and a few flowers, and four are wearing bell pads. From this photo we can pick out Henry Hemmings, his son Percy Hemmings carrying the horns (decorated with flowers), Jim Hemmings wearing the Mayor’s sash, Tom Hemmings, Harry Thomas (with melodeon) and (probably) Ray Hemmings. Percy Hemmings’ scrapbook has a handwritten statement that after this event some men ‘decided that they would get together and revive the old morris dancing in Abingdon once again. Their names being: Henry Hemmings, Percival Hemmings, Charles Hemmings, James Hemmings, Tom Hemmings, Raymond Hemmings, Frederick Wiblin who married Miss Hilda Hemmings sister of James Hemmings, Harry Thomas musician, Charles Brett, Harold Matthews, John Mooring great nephew to Henry Hemmings, Jim Allen (the Fool)’. Most of these, but not all, were either Hemmings or their relations. Henry Hemmings was the brother of the recently-deceased James and William. Tom and Jim were sons of James, and Ray was his grandson. Percy and Charles were sons of Henry. Frederck ‘Darby’ Wiblin married Tom Hemmings’ sister Hilda. All were regulars at the Happy Dick, run by Ray’s father George Hemmings. Harold Matthews had been landlord of the Cross Keys. Harry Thomas, who lived in Mayotts Road, was used to playing the melodeon for the entertainment of the Happy Dick’s customers. Not mentioned in Percy’s list, but also one of the early dancers was John Grimsdale, John Mooring’s uncle, who lived in one of the cottages next door to the Happy Dick.

More biographical details of the Abingdon morris men of the 1930s are given in Appendix 3.

There are photos of practices that took place, probably in 1935 or 1936, in the yard of the Happy Dick. Apparently, Tom Hemmings and his bothers George and Jim were the only ones who remembered the old dances. Harry Thomas knew only six morris tunes and so that is all the Abingdon dancers did at the time. In one of these photos John Hemmings, son of Ray, is shown as a boy ‘mascot’ dressed in morris kit.

Major Francis Fryer was the founder of the Wargrave morris men and also a senior figure in the Berkshire English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS). He hosted an early meeting of the Morris Ring at his home Wargrave Hall in September 1936 and on the Saturday (5th) there was a dancing tour to nearby towns, including Abingdon. The story goes that William ‘Jinky’ Wells from Bampton who was with the Ring tour recognised Henry Hemmings who was watching with his son Percy, and persuaded him to dance a jig. This was the day that Francis Fryer first met the Abingdon morris, and he arranged to pay a follow-up visit. One of the Ring dancers that visited Abingdon that day was Len Bardwell, who would later join the Abingdon team in 1953. On Monday 31st October 1936 Major Fryer met Jim, Henry & Tom Hemmings to learn more about Abingdon morris. He was accompanied by Kenworthy Schofield, a Cambridge morris man and keen morris collector. After Abingdon, they then visited Eynsham, who were also in the process of re-forming their morris team. More biographical detail of Francis Fryer is in Appendix 4.

12th May 1937 was Coronation Day and there was a pageant and procession in Abingdon. As in 1935, the Abingdon morris joined in the procession along with the Horns. There are no photos of actual morris dancing on this date, but Abingdon’s participation in this seems to have come to the attention of Major Fryer, who invited the Abingdon morris to perform at Wargrave Hall as part of a country dance party on 29th May. They took 12 men: 6 dancers, fool, hornbearer, mayor with sword and collecting box, musician, spare man, etc. Fryer commented on the Abingdon dancing that there were so many different steps and no unanimity, but there was “a great amount of real dancing about the whole thing”. This, as far as we know, was the first public performance of the Abingdon morris since the start of the First World War. Several more would follow, starting with the first Mayor’s Day dancing in June 1937. In that, held on a Monday evening, Major Fryer was invited to be the sixth dancer, the other five being Tom Hemmings, Charlie Brett, John Mooring, John Grimsdale and Harold Matthews. Percy Hemmings was hornbearer, Henry Hemmings the mayor and Jim Hemmings held the cup (mace or mazer). Charles Hemmings was present, but did not dance.

No doubt encouraged by Fryer, and ably organised by the secretary (Bagman) Percy Hemmings, several tours and events would follow up to the start of the Second World War in September 1939. William (Nobby) Clark (a son-in-law of Tom Hemmings) was Hornbearer at least once in 1938. In the same year Ernest (Ernie) Constance joined as a dancer, and two men from Wargave (Reg Annetts and Tom Jones) were brought over by Fryer on at least one occasion in 1938 to make up the required number of dancers. It is quite obvious that Fryer taught the Abingdon dances of the time to Wargrave morris men, so they would have quite easily performed with Abingdon.

By 1939, the dancers Frederick (Darby) Wiblin and Harold Matthews had dropped out of the team, as had the fool Jim (Ducky) Allen. John ‘Slim’ Mooring took over as fool. The last tour before war broke out was on Saturday 15th July 1939. It was at this event that Jack Hyde first appeared with the Abingdon morris. He had lived in Ock Street since 1909 and knew all the dancers, but had never joined. On that summer’s day in 1939 he had been to visit his mother in Ock Street and was intending to go to Oxford to watch the cricket in The Parks, but met the morris dancers coming out of the Cock and Tree about to go on this tour, and they persuaded him to go along with them as hornbearer. He appears in several photos of that tour, dressed in a very smart suit. More details of Jack Hyde are in Appendix 3.

With the outbreak of the second world war, Major Fryer, John Mooring and Ernie Constance joined the forces. Most of the other members of the team would have been too old to be conscripted. The morris dancers appeared in some fund raising events during the war. In one of these, Jack Hyde was pressed into service as the sixth dancer despite never having danced the morris before. A photo of the team taken in 1945 labelled “First time after the war 1945” shows Percy Hemmings, John Grimsdale; Harry Thomas (music), Charlie Brett, Tom Hemmings, Charles Hemmings, Jack Hyde; Henry Hemmings (mayor), John Hemmings.

Henry Hemmings died in October 1945 and Harry Thomas died in December 1947. Jack Hyde took over as Bagman in 1949 and Percy Hemmings and his brother Charles Hemmings left the team in 1949. There were some rumours of financial irregularities which caused Percy and Charles to leave, but there is no written evidence of this as far as we know. Dancing resumed in 1949, with the ‘old dancers’ Tom Hemmings, Charlie Brett, Johnny Grimsdale, Jack Hyde and Ray Hemmings; Major Fryer as musician, William Hackett, a local man, as Fool, and two ‘outsider dancers’ in Reg Annetts (Wargrave) and John Gillet (Wargrave and South Berks). Reg Annetts and John Gillet danced with Abingdon until about 1956. Another Wargrave man, Fred Coxhead, danced with Abingdon from 1950 to about 1956. Three other Wargrave men, Fred’s brother Brian Coxhead, Bill Kent and a B.C. West, also danced with Abingdon at least once in the early 1950s. Bill Kent was Major Fryer’s chauffeur, and often drove the team in Major Fryer’s shooting brake even if he wasn’t dancing with them. Jim Hemmings turned out as Hornbearer or some other non-dancing role until 1954. Stanley Drew, a friend of Major Fryer, acted as Hornbearer on Mayor’s Day 1949. Without the drafting in of the Wargrave men, it would often have been impossible to turn out a full Abingdon team during the early 1950s.

John Hemmings, Cecil Hemmings and Maurice Hemmings were all sons of Ray Hemmings and turned out as either boy dancers or, in the case of John, Hornbearer, in the early 1950s. John Hemmings founded J R Hemmings car body repair firm, later run by his son Gary until 2017. It is believed that John helped to fund the start-up of Mr Hemmings Morris Dancers in 1979.

Leslie Argyle, a local man, had started dancing with Oxford Morris Men in 1950, but was persuaded to go to an Abingdon practice in 1951. His first public performance with Abingdon was at the Royal Albert Hall in January 1952. Les thereafter became a regular dancer with Abingdon, but he also kept his link with morris in Oxford by dancing as a guest with the university team, and in 1957 joined the Oxford City Morris which succeeded the Oxford Morris Men. More details of Les Argyle are in Appendix 4. He went on to become Mayor of Ock Street 1980-1995, and for several years after that was the Lead Dancer.

Len Bardwell had taken up the morris in 1927 at the age of 40, and before the second world war danced with East Surrey and Greensleeves. He attended many prewar Ring meetings, including the Wargrave meeting which visited Abingdon. He visited Abingdon in 1937 as part of the August Bank Holiday show in the Abbey Grounds at which an EFDSS team performed. After the war, Len retired to live in Harwell and soon joined the Oxford Morris Men. He also visited the early 1950s Mayor’s Days as a guest or with Oxford. In 1951 the Oxford Morris Men, which up to then had been a mixture of university and townspeople, was reduced to very few members when the Oxford University Morris Men set up as a separate team. Eventually in 1953 Len was the only member left, but kept the Oxford Morris Men name going by dancing a jig on May Morning and attending Ring Meetings in their name. In 1957, the Oxford City Morris Men were formed and Len became a member of them too. As Major Fryer became more frail from about 1956 onwards, Len gradually took over as Abingdon’s musician, a position he kept until 1965, when his health started to wane. More details of Len Bardwell are in Appendix 4.

Brian Clark, a grandson of Tom Hemmings and son of William (Nobby) Clark, first turned out for Abingdon morris in 1952, and continued as a dancer until 1968, standing as a candidate for Mayor of Ock Street on several occasions in the 1960s. He later became the founding President of Mr Hemmings Morris Dancers in 1979. One of the reasons for the formation of this ‘breakaway’ group is said to be that he tried to re-join Abingdon as a dancer in 1978 but was told that he would have to start again as a novice, which he refused to do.

Frank Jordan joined as a teenage dancer from the Boxhill Boys team in 1952, and continued as a dancer until 1957. At the time of writing (2022) he is still alive, active and living in Abingdon – the oldest surviving Abingdon morris dancer.

Ernie Constance had been a Japanese prisoner of war and obviously took some time to recover from this on his return, but he re-joined Abingdon as a dancer in 1953 and from about 1955 took over as Hornbearer. He died in 1958.

Stuart Jackson, another grandson of Tom Hemmings, first appeared as a boy ‘mascot’ in 1956, and continued as a boy dancer until 1960. He apparently left because his grandfather had died and other members of the team that looked after him had left. He became a founder member of Mr Hemmings Morris Dancers in 1979, but by 1986 he had rejoined Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers. He was Mayor of Ock Street 1996-2006 and at the time of writing (2022) is still a member, mostly acting as Hornbearer. He became President of the team in late 2021.

George Pickard was one the Barnardos’ Boys team of the late 1950s and in 1959 he joined the senior Abingdon morris team. He danced with the team until 1962.

Frank Purslow was a colourful character, and is descrbed in more detail in Appendix 4. In the late 1950s he was based in London and doing voluntary work at the Vaughan Williams library. He was a visitor to Mayor’s Day and seems to have been invited to join the team in 1959 (the first definite photo the archives have of him dancing with Abingdon is September 1959 at the Headington Ring Meeting, but he may also have been the Fool for at least part of Mayor’s Day 1959). A staunch traditionalist about all matters folk, he acknowledged that he was an ‘outsider’ to the Abingdon team but at the same time decried the fact that Abingdon had to rely on other ‘outsiders’ to field a team in the early 1960s. He was instrumental in Roy Dommett joining Abingdon in 1960. Frank left the Abingdon team in 1962 and moved to Bampton, where he saw out the rest of his days.

Roy Dommett was another colourful character, literally ‘larger than life’. He joined Abingdon at the 1960 Reigate Ring Meeting, having previouslty danced with his local side in Hampshire. A senior rocket scientist as well as a renowned folk collector, Roy would travel from Hampshire to practices and Abingdon performances throughout the 1960s and was one of the first ‘ousiders’ to keep Abingdon morris going in the 1960s. More about Roy Dommett is in Appendix 4.

The start of the 1960s saw a big change in Abingdon morris personnel. John ‘Slim’ Mooring sustained a serious foot injury at work in 1960 and had to give up dancing and fooling. Tom Hemmings died in December 1960 and Major Fryer died in January 1961. The team was reduced to Charlie Brett, Johnny Grimsdale, Jack Hyde, Ray Hemmings (Mayor), Len Bardwell (musician), Les Argyle, Brian Clark and Roy Dommett. Paddy O’Neill, of the newly-formed Kennet morris men and a stalwart of Berkshire EFDSS, seems to have helped Abingdon out in 1960 and 1961, and was one of the party that made the first overseas tour in 1966, but he was not a regular. No local men or boys seemed to want to join the Abingdon team and there was a real possibility of the team dying out. To address this, Len Bardwell and Les Argyle, both of whom were also active with Oxford City Morris Men, invited some men from Oxford to attend practices in Abingdon. At first, the older and more local members of the side did not attend these practices, so it was left to Len Bardwell to organise and run them.

The first lot of Oxford men to attend these practices and eventually appear in Abingdon morris colours from 1963 onwards were John White, Peter and Frank Jeal and Pat Patterson. Later on, in 1965, they were joined by Bruce Tofield and Johnny Walker. Ray Hemmings left the team in 1963 due to ill health, leaving just five local dancers, three of whom were by now too old to dance much. It is fair to say that without this influx of ‘Oxford men’ plus Roy Dommett, the Abingdon morris would certainly have died in the mid 1960s.

John White came from a local East Hendred family and later moved to Blewbury. He worked at the NRPB (Harwell labs) and was a member of Oxford City Morris Men. He was a fine musician as well as a dancer, and would in 1966 take over from Len Bardwell as Abingdon musician. However, before that, he would turn out for Abngdon as a dancer. In the 1970s he became a local councillor and had less and less time to devote to the morris.

Peter Jeal and Frank Jeal lived at Folly Farm, Harwell (now Kingswell Hotel), where their father worked as a footman and butler. They both went to Blewbury primary school, then Abingdon School (Roysse’s as it was called then) on scholarships. After National Service in the Navy, Frank went to Oxford University (to St Catherine’s Society as it was then called, a college for local men) and was Squire of Oxford University Morris Men in 1960-61. He left Oxford for Bangor University in 1962 and then Trinity College, Dublin from 1965 onwards. He was an accomplished accordionist and folk singer and would often return to the area and join in Oxford or Abingdon morris events. He did not do much with Abingdon between 1963 and 1965 but after that turned up as a musician with Abingdon quite a bit in the late 1960s, including acting as the sole musician on the 1966 trip to Alençon. Frank stayed in Dublin until his death in 2017. He was highly respected for his research and lecturing in zoology, and he was a well-known and popular musician on Dublin’s folk music scene. His brother Peter stayed in the area during the 1960s and he regularly danced with Oxford City Morris Men, later on becoming the Squire. He also turned out regularly as a dancer with Abngdon from 1963 to 1968. Peter moved to Cornwall in the 1970s and lived there until his death in 2021. He was active in the Cornish folk music scene and among other things revived the Cadgwith mummers.

Pat Patterson (real name Basil, but he never used it) was brought up and went to school in Wantage. He then studied at Oxford University and after National Service did a doctorate at Oxford too. He was a member of Oxford University Morris Men (OUMM) and in 1962 was one of the ‘Oxford Men’ that attended the Abingdon practices run by Len Bardwell and Les Argyle. He danced with Abingdon between 1963 and 1968 and carried the Horns on several Mayor’s Days. In July 1965 he organised a tour of the Ancient Men (OUMM on tour) in Somerset which he invited Roy Dommett to join, thus introducing Roy to OUMM. On the same tour a meeting was held to discuss how OUMM could help Abingdon keep going and the result of that was that Bruce Tofield and Johnny Walker were invited to start practising with Abingdon later on in 1965. All three went on Abingdon’s first overseas trip to Alençon, France in 1966. During a three hour wait at Le Havre for their transport, Pat consumed so much wine that he did not actually dance at all during the trip. In 1967 he introduced a fellow Wantage inhabitant, the fiddler Chris Bartram to the Abingdon team. Later on in 1967 he got a job with British Gas that involved visitng gas rigs and moved to London, but still kept up dancing with Abingdon. In 1968 Pat was temporarily suspended from the Abingdon morris after a drunken episode at Thaxted Feast. After apologising he was reinstated and did dance with Abingdon again in 1968, but his last contact with Abingdon morris seems to have been the social in November 1968. In December 1968 he married Joan, a midwife, who quite possibly persuaded him to give up morris dancing.

Bruce Tofield and Johnny Walker were Oxford University students who started going to Abingdon practices in autumn 1965 and were welcomed by both Jack Hyde and Charlie Brett. Bruce was at that time the squire of OUMM – he was brought up in Newbury, he had danced with South Berks as a boy along with his father (Alec) and uncle (Rupert) and his parents were staunch members of Berkshire EFDSS. He danced with Abingdon until 1971 when he left to work in USA for a few years, but returned in the mid 1970s and settled in Abingdon, dancing with Abingdon until the early 1980s, when he joined Mr Hemmings morris dancers. Johnny Walker, a Yorkshireman, succeeded Bruce as squire of OUMM in 1966, and danced with Abingdon until he left to work in USA in 1969. Both Bruce and Johnny had highly successful careers as research scientists. Johnny Walker is now Sir John Walker, a Nobel Prize winner.

Dave Webb was a third recruit from OUMM. He had not been to Abingdon practices, but appeared as Fool for Abingdon on the 1966 trip to France and on Mayor’s Day 1967. He was a folk singer, and married the singer who became Peta Webb. They left Oxford to teach in Ghana, where Dave became very ill and never recovered completely.

Ray Applegate, who originally came from Bampton but in the 1960s lived in Station Road, Abingdon, was the leader of the Faringdon District scouts. They had been on a trip to St Valery en Caux (France) in 1965 and were planning a return in 1967, but this time they wanted to take something quintessentially English with them, and thought that morris dancing was what they wanted to do. In 1966, Ray contacted Francis Shergold of Bampton morris to ask if they could train his scouts but Francis said that with their tradition of only teaching men from the village to dance he couldn’t help. He did however suggest that Abingdon could probably do this, even though Ray at the time did not know that Abingdon even had a morris team, and eventually Frank Purslow sent Ray contact details for Jack Hyde. So it came about that in May 1967 some of the scout leaders plus Ray’s 10 year old son Chris were given weekly practices on Thursdays in the badminton court at Longworth Manor and later on in the streets of Longworth. Those who went over to Longworth to teach the dances included Jack Hyde (who played mouth organ), Johnny Grimsdale, Roy Dommett (who played the accordion), Brian Clark, Bruce Tofield and Johnny Walker. The scouts duly took the dances over to France and even, on a day trip to Paris, danced under the Eiffel Tower. On their return, the following at least joined the Abingdon morris team: Ray Applegate, his 10 year old son Chris Applegate, Ray’s brother Tony Applegate, Mick Furze, Bill Mattingley and Richard Holland. Abingdon morris was saved by this influx of a large number of local (and, importanly, young) people. On Mayor’s Day 1967, the Abingdon team was able to field 18 men and boys, and from then on had no problems getting a side out for pub tours, fetes and other functions. Apart from Richard Holland, these scouts stayed as active members of Abingdon morris for many years. Ray Applegate organised Ales and Ladies’ Nights at the Railway Inn, which soon became the practice location and headquarters of the Abingdon morris (even though it wasn’t in Ock Street!).

As Abingdon morris suddenly became more visible to the local inhabitants, and now had a good proportion of fairly young dancers, this attracted more locals to join.

Dick Bernard moved to Abingdon from Guernsey in 1966 to work at Harwell. Born in Reading, he had done morris dancing at his primary school there and on moving to Abingdon attended the Rusty Rails folk club at the Railway Inn. He joined Abingdon morris as a novice in late 1967 and first danced out in public in 1968. He went on to be an active dancer until the early 1980s. Brian Perrett was another local young folk enthusiast who joined around the same time. Frank Pine lived in the same AERE hostel as Dick Bernard and joined Abingdon as Fool in 1969.

1968 also saw the Abingdon morris debut of Colin Corner, a Liverpudlian who had moved with his wife and young family to the area some years before. He was also a member of the Rusty Rails folk club and at the time was working as a technician in Oxford University Engineering Department. He contacted Bruce Tofield, who was based in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory in Oxford, to ask for details of Abingdon morris practices. A staunch supporter of Everton football club, the story that Colin went to Swindon to watch them play in a cup match and then got stranded forever in Abingdon on the way back, is I am afraid, dear reader, just an urban legend. Colin took over from Jack Hyde as bagman of ATMD in 1971 and was a major influence on the team thereafter until he resigned in 1995.

It seems appropriate to end this detailed list of Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers personnel at this point (1969). A great number of those listed have now sadly died, and those still alive (and in their 70s or more in most cases) do not seem to object to being referred to as members of the team. Indeed some of them have complained in the past that they were not given due recognition, so hopefully this publication will gain their approval. From the 1970s onwards the team has had a large number of members who may or may not want their names to be published in this regard, and to contact each one for their approval is not practical.

The Archives for 1970 to the present day will continue to be studied and more diaries of events from these years will be published when time permits, but these will concentrate more on dates and events rather than personnel.

References

Material in ATMD archives and scrapbooks
Copies of material that we did not have in our archives kindly provided by Jonathan Leach (Mr Hemmings morris dancers).
Material in the Vaughan Williams Library online archive https://www.vwml.org/projects/vwml-the-full-english
Email correspondence with Chris Applegate, Bruce Tofield, Johnny Walker, John Watmough, Dick Bernard
Oral information from, among others, Stuart Jackson and the late Ewart Hemmings
And for the early history:
- Jonathan Leach, ‘Morris Dancing in Abingdon to 1914’, Chandler Publications, Eynsham, 1987 (now out of print)
- Keith Chandler, ‘Morris dancing in the English South Midlands 1660-1900: A Chronological Gazetteer’, Second, revised edition 2001, available on CD from Musical Traditions (MTCD250 from mtrecords.co.uk/mt_rec2.htm#morr )

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