The vast majority of today's alleged "Border"sides are based on the Kirkpatrick/Bedlams model, and tend to have little knowledge or interest in the traditional dances of the border counties. Any "tradition" they have can be dated back no more than 40 years, so the colour that they choose to paint their faces can not be justified by any appeal to ancient practices.

There are, however, a small number of sides whose sole or main repertoire is the traditional dances of the Border area, chief among them Silurian, Iron Men, Vancouver Morris and the (Saturday before Christmas only) Original Welsh Border Morris Men. These sides have researched the dances, both from written sources, and from the memories of old people who had performed or witnessed the last manifestations of a once-flourishing tradition.

By the way, I find it ironic that Border dancers get slammed on here for denying that there is any connection with Minstrels. And at the same time they are slammed for "gleefully" publishing information showing that there undoubtedly was a connection between "Niggering" and the minstrels. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Is Border morris based on Minstrels? With the paucity of documentation of the pre-minstrel period we shall probably never be able to get a definitive answer, but on what we do know I incline to the view that there certainly was an indigenous dancing tradition before the arrival of the Minstrels in the 1830s and 40s. Salient features included fairly simple dances, often allowing the participation of varying numbers, the use of sticks, rag coats or similar makeshift costume, and facial disguise. Unlike Cotswold and other forms of morris, it was predominantly a winter activity, apparently more often carried out after dark.

I suppose it is possible that none of this existed before 1830, but that after the advent of minstrel shows a dozen villages in the Border counties quite independently decided that blacking up was a good idea, so they each went out and invented a few simple stick dances, and wore strange costumes and blacked their faces. And they all decided independently not to whiten their eyes and mouth nor wear curly wigs to look more like minstrels, nor to ape the costume of the minstrels.

More likely to my way of thinking is that these independent traditions had managed to survive in a few places prior to the advent of minstrels. But in the 1830s, just as now, the public at large made an unwarranted but unsurprising connection between the only two groups they knew that artificially blacked their faces. It is not inconceivable that the "Niggering" name was originally given by the Great British public rather than the dancers themselves. "You look just like them minstrels – give us a song" may have been hard to resist if there was an extra shilling or half crown in it for them. These were very poor people, remember, who wouldn't be averse to earning a few extra coppers by giving their so-called "betters" what they wanted to hear.

So is blackface traditional? Well yes and no. According to published sources the Dilwyn and Upton men did not black up, while some did and some didn't at Bromsberrow Heath, and only the Fool at Pershore. Evesham, Peopleton and White Ladies Aston did, while Much Wenlock also blacked their hands and the Pershore Not-for-Joes blackened faces and hands and also varnished their nails.

I occasionally dance with Black Jack Morris, based in the Evesham area, who try to maintain the traditions of our area as well as possible. We do the traditional dances at the traditional times: we
do nothing at all during BST, but once the clocks go back we practice up to Christmas, and dance out after New Year in local villages, usually on a Friday or Saturday, always after dark. And the start of Summer Time brings an end to our season. Our costume is based upon the available descriptions of the Bengeworth dancers, as is the blackened face.

Evesham is on the cusp between the Border and Cotswold traditions: within ten miles or so can be found the Cotswold traditions of Chipping Campden, Ilmington and Bidford-on-Avon, and the local sides here take great pains to maintain their local traditions and to display them around the local villages. I dance for Shakespeare MM of Stratford-upon-Avon, guardians of the Bidford dances, as well as performing with the Shakespeare Mummers, who have a repertoire of about a dozen plays collected in local villages, and take a different play out each winter round the area. Like the morris, the Mummers play has been touched by the influence of the minstrel show, but here there is much more evidence for the prevalence of blackface before the 1830s.

In the last 15 years we have done much to dilute this influence: we have searched (in vain) for evidence of the songs sung prior to the 1830s. We used to have a rota of three songs traditionally sung by the old (ca 1900) mummers at the end of the play, all from the minstrels (Old Bob Ridley, Camptown Races and Not For Joe): the group has made no formal decision but the first two are now rarely if ever sung, and the line "We had a little N*** and he grew no bigger" in NFJ has been changed to "We had a little Mummer and he was no strummer". (But we have kept the Uncle Billy verse unchanged). We still black up, but Father Christmas has a RED face and Sweet Moll a WHITE one: I have personally never been comfortable with the all-over uniform deep black, and tend to be blotchy and probably more grey than black in places. At the start of each performance our Captain gives an introductory talk about the history of mumming and the reason for the blacking, and the rest of us are often engaged in conversation afterwards by spectators anxious to know more.

The more information we can spread about what we do and why we do it the better. I am not ashamed to black up for either morris or mumming, but I have no desire to cause unnecessary offence, and am always willing to explain my understanding of what it means and why I do it. Ruth Archer has said that the link with minstrels is inextricable: you could say that so is the link between the BNP and the English Flag and St George. I disagree with both views, and am engaged in trying to extricate both Border and Mumming and St George's day and the flag from the pool of ignorance in which many well-meaning but ill-informed liberals dwell and to prevent these cultural gems from becoming the tool of the fascist scum who would use it to fan persecution mania.

I am English, and proud to be so. But I do not feel my Englishness threatened or diminished by members of other races or cultures living here. I am proud to have been an early joiner of FAF (and similar groups) on Facebook, and would never knowingly offer any comfort or assistance to anyone I knew to espouse fascist views, be they morris dancer, mummer or Middle Bar singer (Yes. I'm also one of them).