Kevin:

Morris Dancing is OUR heritage and National Dance - I'm sure that you would promote Dancers and Dancing from other cultures - so WHY NOT OURS!!!??

I have to say this strikes me as precisely the wrong approach. Anyone reading your letter who has already decided that blackface is racist will simply conclude that traditional English culture is racist, and to hell with it. "Why not ours?" Putting myself in that head-teacher's shoes for a moment, that's not a difficult question to answer at all: because "we" are the inheritors of a history of oppression; Britannia didn't just rule the waves, she ruled millions of people with naturally dark faces, and didn't always do a good job of it. You might as well ask why the Orange Order shouldn't be allowed to celebrate their culture (by marching through Catholic areas banging drums).

There may be people out there who have been blacking up, man and boy, since Cecil Sharp was a lad, but it seems to me that the spread of blackface Morris is a very recent phenomenon. When I was a kid - in South London in the 70s - Morris meant cricket whites with bells round the ankles and perhaps a sash; the bag-carrier would wear a boater with flowers around the brim, but that was about as fancy as it got. As far as I'm concerned, it's Morris that's traditional - blackface is an optional extra, and a pretty recent addition for most sides. If you can't do it that way any more these days, for fear of being misinterpreted, so what? Do it a different way.