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Isca Morrismen Tradition Articles
The Beginning of Twenty-Two Years On
The following article was published in Beer Necessities - Autumn 1998:-
"The Beginning of Twenty-Two Years On - A Personal Reflection by Adrian Foss"
Coming from Oxfordshire in morris dancing terms is a privilege though at the time I did not realise it. Much of the danced morris tradition comes from that part of the world. My first sighting was at Comb where people would put a pig on the wall to watch the village band go by so it became known as silly Comb. Then later when I saw other teams, I realised I wanted to take up the art form but did not think it would be with Cardiff Morrismen in 1971.
When the oil crisis came in 1976, the distance five of us had to travel from Gwent became an issue so we thought about forming a local team. At the time some of us had been running country dance ceilidhs in Usk in the yard of the Royal Hotel. The ale was good and served straight from the barrel to the thirsty dancers. It was a hot summer with a long drought but the ceilidhs ran and provided Isca morrismen with a recruitment source so that when we decided to form separately from Cardiff, there was a goodly number of volunteers.
With the side formed and the ceilidhs moved into the Usk Memorial Hall for the winter, we would put on a show. To see there was good real ale on the Saturday night, we would trundle barrels of Felinfoel to the hall and set them up. Those first pints when we tapped the barrel is something I recall well indeed, and since our inception the side has been among the keenest real ale drinkers. Our summertime excursions to town and country pubs have two main criteria, space to dance and good ale. Even during winter after practice, we never stray from the handpump.
Our high points have been many and varied with three trips to Dieppe and one to Heidenheim where we were warmly welcomed by our hosts. Then there was the revival of the mumming play that tells of the Christmas season, life, death, the fight of good over evil, the resurrection, and poverty and wealth. It draws many laughs from an unsuspecting clientele and also a good deal of cash that is donated to local charities. But we came unstuck when for our opening performance we took it back to a Chepstow pub where we were told it was last performed in 1913. As one of our number dropped his trousers in the bar to get into his costume, the landlord evicted us!
Another international encounter was when we danced for some Republic of China engineers in Caerleon after seeing in the summer at 5.30am on a May morning in the amphitheatre. It was early for them and might be something to do with the Chinese authorities kicking out the British from Hong Kong! The May morning idea was born out of the time honoured tradition of dancing in the summer. "We need to hoist a virgin aloft" came the call. "But where will we get one at this time of night?" "We need to advertise for all the virgins to gather in the local telephone box" came the response!
The first time we performed this May morning feat was on top of Twm Barlwm which was as cold as you could expect at the time of year. Despite inviting the media to join in there was just us, the birds, and a few startled sheep but no virgins. After we moved the event to Caerleon Amphitheatre we did manage to hoist aloft Juliana Fiddler from BBC Radio Gwent.
The summer has seen us out and about in town and country. We have well over forty dances to our repertoire, both eight and six man and solo jigs. We practice every Wednesday in Newport from the end of September onwards.
