Interview : Steve Fuller of Grimsby Morris

Uh, we struggled a bit for a musician for a bit, but had a lot of help from the local English Folk Dance and Song Society who gave us copies of the Sharp Morris books and Sword books. And then Kathy Mitchell came over from Hull and taught us a couple of dances, and Derek Bellamy, who lived in York, who'd, uh, danced with White Rose taught us some dances. And, uh, we, we danced out first on May 1st, 1974 with EBO. Um, my first experience with Grimsby was in 1977 when we had a day of dancing in York and we'd invited lots of teams over, and there was Green Ginger from Hull, Grimsby from Grimsby, Bull's Head from Bradford, and, uh, White Rose from Leeds. I think Redcoat came down and did some long sword. Uh, but the thing that really sort of changed my opinion of Morris completely was just at Pomfret who came over, 'cause they looked completely different from everybody else. Their kit was modeled on the 19, sorry, 1890 photograph of Bucknell.

So they were there with the rosettes and the whites, top hats. And they only danced Bucknell dances, and compared with everybody else they had a kind of magnificence about them and a poise and, uh, uh, a certainty about the way they moved that convinced me that what we were doing, which was 27 dances from 16 traditions, didn't look right. Uh, and they brought with them their friends, um, Shropshire Cadillac and Martha Rodent's Company Dish.

Uh, and at this point I must say that rumors of John Kirkpatrick mooning through the pub window of-

... the Spread Eagle are exaggerated.

Uh, and that was the first time I'd ever seen proper hardcore Border Morris. And again, there was a degree of, of, of performance about it which you didn't see from a lot of revival sides. And I came to the conclusion at that point that, uh, it was more about performance than it was about trying to reproduce something, uh, or, or replicate something or reenact something, which is what we'd been tending to do previously. And then in, uh, August of '77 EBO came to Alford and danced at the first Alford weekend, so I got to know the Grimsby team quite well. Uh, and we came two or three times with EBO. Then I went to Sheffield to work in Sheffield, and, uh, good friends of ours were, um, living in Oxford, so I spent a lot of time in Oxford over the summer watching teams like Kirklington and Ducklington, North Leigh, South Leigh, Eynsham, Sherborne, all the village teams that were doing their own traditions.

Uh, I got to know people like, uh, Keith Chandland, um, Mike Heaney, Dave Townsend, who were doing a lot of work on church records and looking at family trees of dance teams, showing that a lot of the people shared musicians or shared dancers in villages in, and the, the, the strict definition of tradition as defined by people like Sharp was, was probably not right. But I got from that of the view that if you're s- if you're gonna do good Morris, then it had to have some kind of authenticity and it had to have some kind of performance level rather than just being a, an intellectual exercise for the dancers trying to remember which tradition they were doing. And, uh, '77, uh, Dot moved to Grimsby, so I was over at weekends 'cause we'd been together for like two or three years before that. So I'd regularly bump into people like Paul Lock in the, uh, Royal Oak Folk Club on a Friday night, or people out at the, uh, Wardsmith or Roth or would have a decent pint, that sort of thing.

Then in '81, as luck would have it, I, I got the job in Grimsby, having been interviewed in all kinds of places, in Scotland, uh, Sittingbourne in Kent, Abingdon, Amsterdam.

Ended up in Grimsby, which was brilliant. Uh, and joined Grimsby Morris in 1981. Uh, at that time we was known as The Kens because the two noisiest were Ken Fox and Ken Watson. Um, didn't go down with them, well with them, but that's what we used to call 'em. Uh, [laughs] and so people like Dave Spreadborough I've known since then and before. Um-

And then about '83, '84, I became squire. That's when the tabards went and we got the, uh, braces, and, uh, the plans for top hats, which only recently actually happened. And the Border Morris moved from being an all the year round thing to being only a winter thing or primarily a winter thing. Although we did do it sometimes in the summer where we'd have days of dancing. I remember one particular, um, Alford Mor- uh, Morris weekend when we danced Border on the Sunday all day.

... 'cause it hurts. Uh, then I retired in 1986, and we had two kids, and then about '91 I got a phone call from, uh, Kev Snelling, 'cause Ken had got a job after Fife's closed down and was working in either Sittingbourne or Orkney. Um, Ken Fox had died by that point, and they were short of a musician and short of anybody who could remember the dances. So it was back to being able to remember the dances again. And we had a meeting at The Cricketers.

I think Chris was, I think you were there-

During your time with the side, uh, you've done many things, uh, created original stuff for us. I mean, for a start, you, you designed the kit that we wear now. Uh, and, um, and come up with some wonderful ideas, uh, including, uh, a show that, um, you, um, originated, uh, with a co- with cooperation of, um-

... with the cooperation of, uh, our companion side at the time, Barley Break. Uh, you called it To Pass Time in Good Company. I mean, we all know where the, where the phrase came from, but it was an excellent title for it and tends to sum up what, uh, Grimsby Morris men, uh, and, and their activities is all about. Um, and, and Plough Plays, do you want to make any comment about Plough Plays?

... not doing it to reenact it. You're doing it because it is for now, and it's an entertainment, and everybody enjoys it. And because it's seasonal, it becomes emblematic, and it becomes, uh, part of the season. And here's a lovely little story about, let me tell you about that. Um, about 1978, '79, I went to see the Baker Coco dancers. Uh, they danced for miles, and we were t- towards the end of the afternoon, Long Street, waiting for the Nutters to turn up, and there's an, an old woman sat on a deckchair by her front door with, uh, some sandwiches and a flask of tea. You saw the Nutters emerge from a pub up the road and dance down the road, then go in the working men's club, and about 20 minutes later, the dance passed. And she obviously knew who these people were because there were nods and waves, and the greetings were exchanged. And they'd just got about five yards down the road, and she stood up and started to fold her chair up.

And I said to her, "Are you not going to watch any dancing?" She said, "No, I'm, I've, I've seen these blokes dozens of times before, but now I've seen the Nutters, I know it's Easter, and I'll have my egg tomorrow."

I'm very pleased to hear that, and I'm sure the men of the side agree with that.

Thank you very much indeed, Steve. It was very interesting listening to all of that.