The Rain, The Park and Other Things

Saturday 30th June, and the Olympic Torch comes to Birmingham. We’d been booked to do a little spot on Calthorpe Park. Not knowing what to expect, we gradually assembled on the car park to an inner city play centre. A fairly large group of black teenagers were already in attendance, listening to some really loud RnB on a car stereo. They were fascinated with our tatters, top hats and blackened faces, and Phil, who had arrived first, had been roped into a few photo opportunities. One of them had apparently called his mother who’d also had to come and look, and take a photo.

Everybody ready, we trudged across the grass to the park, and the stage which had been erected in one corner. There was a samba band strutting their stuff as we arrived. They were doing some sort of procession, around the park, accompanied by hordes of kids, parents and pushchairs. Most of the kids had shakers and rattles that they had apparently been making that afternoon. The dancers fell in at the back. The band were spared this extra walk, as we had to get all of our gear over to the stage, but the dancers came back full of enthusiasm anyway.

As the last strains of the samba band died away, we suddenly heard our name over the PA system and we were on! A crowd of about a hundred was there, mainly young ‘uns, mainly African-Caribbean and Asian origin, most I suspect had never watched the Morris before. The kids were so enthusiastic that they were crowding in, only inches from the dancers half the time. Some of the smaller ones found themselves little spaces on the grass and were shyly having a go. We started with a John Barleycorn, moved on to a Twiglet and went quickly through a repertoire of about seven or eight dances.  After nearly half an hour we finished to rousing applause, to make way for the local sports club prize giving. We even got a “three cheers” from the sports club guy.

Our spot over, we headed for the ice cream van for a well-earned break. As we were sitting there, a group of four teenaged girls came up and asked us if we could do another dance. So we did a Brimfield for them, and gathered another small crowd. It was great!

A nice afternoon, lovely to do a spot for a genuinely appreciative audience.  And the rain? Well, despite a shower in the daytime, and fairly overcast clouds most of the afternoon and evening, it kept off. We stayed dry. Such is the power of The Morris.