Highside Longsword Logbook 2010
NINETY SEVENTH PUBLIC PERFORMANCE 17th January 2010
PERFORMERS :-
Musician - Ray Waite
Captain - Peter Meese
1 Ted Dodsworth
2 Roy Waite
3 Keith Worden, Rob Thew
4 Geoff Hyde
5 Jim Coulson
6 Paul Freeman
Annual plough blessing at St Andrew's, Kirkby Malzeard. There had been an article on Aled Jones' show on Radio 2 a week earlier about plough blessing and Geoff had emailed the show to tell them about ours. It was mentioned at 7.10am!
The Health and Safety Executive were using the event to raise awareness of safety on farms so we were asked to wear ‘knots' to symbolise this. They also had a photographer there. There wasn't any visiting clergy this year so the sermon was quite short and enjoyable. We danced particularly well with Ray playing very well, just slightly faster which suited most of us.
Afterwards we beheaded the man from the HSE! We then went to the Henry Jenkins for a meal and quite a long music session. We were preparing ourselves for the evening plough blessing at Masham.
Keith had danced at Kirkby and Rob came to Masham, we would have liked a quick practice but Roy had got stuck in the snow at Peter's house and just made it in time to make the lock.
The Bishop of Knaresborough gave the address and we beheaded him straight after the dance which had gone really well again. Sausages and mulled wine again. And another photographer, this time from the Northern Echo.
Then Roy realised he'd locked his keys in car in the rush. Ray couldn't get in either so we went to the White Bear for a drink or two.
NINETY EIGHTH PUBLIC PERFORMANCE 26th December 2010
PERFORMERS :-
Musician - Ray Waite
Captain - Peter Meese
1 Ted Dodsworth
2 Roy Waite
3 Rob Thew
4 Geoff Hyde
5 Jim Coulson
6 Paul Freeman
The weather in the run up to this year's boxing day was the coldest for many a year with snow and temperatures below -12 C. Gloves had been requested by some dancers. This caused objections that were overcome before dancing could start, gloveless! In the event it wasn't as cold as anticipated.
The first dance at Grantley went very well, especially considering we hadn't danced (or practised) since last January. Small audience including my family, Jenny, Brian, Finlay, Owen, Del (Brian's Mum) and Sandy (Brian's brother). Also Mrs Stanley who had recently moved into the village. We beheaded Del as she is foreign!
On to the cross at Kirkby Malzeard, after a drink in the Queen's. A reasonable crowd watched another good performance. The gentleman from Stone Monkey was in the audience. We beheaded Andrew Bodey (again). The landlord at the Queen's then offered us a drink.
Up the the Ringbeck end of the village where people were waiting or us to arrive. We did a slightly shorter dance, leaving out the single unders after the double under and double over. It was getting colder. We collected £13.68!
On to the Drovers at Dallowgill, about 3.15. Time for a drink but it didn't seem as dark as in past years. A large crowd came out to watch and were very vociferous, whopping and cheering throughout the performance. We beheaded Trevor Kitchen first but other people seemed to want to be done too (Maisie?).
Back inside for some soup, only to be bought another drink by a kind member of Trevor's family. Another enjoyable day.