I was a dancer in Australia with Sydney and Canberra Morrismen, had to stop dancing because of bad hips/knees/liver. But to my surprise my very groovy twenty year old son decided to become a dancer, and is now with Black Joak Morris. This side has three second generation dancers, and one third generation dancer born in England.

Black Joak also has a couple of sixteen year olds, so I am not at all worried about the continuation of Morris. I now play fiddle for the dancers.

Funny, when I was dancing, nobody ever laughed at us. Who would laugh at eight fit blokes, most of them over six foot and fifteen stone carrying dirty great lumps of wood. One of our dancers was the Bouncer at famous Sydney knocking shop the Touch of Class.I can only think of one occaison we used the sticks for non peaceful purposes... when some yobbo attacked our muso while we were dancing. the squire suddely called rounds, and every person dancing past this yobbo bashed him with a yard of willow.. worked a treat.Just like the Cloggies!

Despite all of the boozing and singing and dancing, sometimes, when the dance fell into place eactly, we could all feel an unreal connection to generations before us and, I suspect, to things in the collective uncosnsious. Like alcoholism, only people who have it will know what I am talking about.

Laugh all you like, but those who do are laughing at the whiteman's oldest form of cultural expression.I reckon Morris will be around a long time after most other cultural forms have gone to dust . Why? Because it is real magic.