Brighton Morris Men

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The Sussex Loops

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The Brighton Morris logo is a drawing of one of the Sussex Loops, Bronze Age bands (3,500 + years old) of unknown purpose, unique to Sussex. Two of these are currently housed in Brighton and Hove museum.

All images Reproduced with the kind permission of The Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton and Hove

The Lewes Tradition

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People We Like

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Proud to be supporters of and supported by:	Chums with:

Brighton Mummers	Kate's Kitchen Band

Songs We Sing

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Songs are a really important part of what we do. Brighton Morris Men are famed not only for their extraordinarily nimble toes, but for their ability to tear the house down with a melodious chorus or two.

Click this slightly hairy fellow for a pdf of Brighton Morris Men's Song Book
or follow this link

This Year's Programme

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Download Pdf

Book Brighton Morris For Your Events

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Spice up your event with a visit from the devillishly handsome Brighton Morris Men.
For more information contact our Standsman.
info@brightonmorris.co.uk

Advice for pubs: Morris Dancing is thirsty work and Brighton Morris Men work very, very hard. We advise landlords to make sure there is plenty of ale and enough staff to serve it as we are more than capable of drinking your bar dry.

Traditions We Dance

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We dance primarily in the English "Cotswold" tradition. These are the dances that require us to wear bells and wave hankies or hit sticks. This year we are dancing in the styles of Bledington, Adderbury, Fieldtown, Upton, Bucknell, Bampton and Headington. We have also introduced three dances from our own Lewes style.Additionally, you might wish to read one of our men's (Paul Hartwell) dissertation for his degree: "Morris Dancing and the Liberation of Iraq". He got a First, by the way.

Here's a list of dances we do. There's the 'A' list (done this year)and the 'B' list (done it in the past 5 years or so).

There's (H)anky and (S)tick.

Bledington

William & Nancy (A, H)
Ladies' Pleasure (B, H, jig)
Young Collins (Cricket) (A, S)
Morning Star (B, H)
Trunkles (B, H)
Glorisher (Leapfrog), (A, H)
Black Joker (A, S)
Skirmish (A, S)
Hey Diddle Diss (B, H, Processional)

Headington

Rigs O'Marlow (A, S)
Hunt the Squirrel (A, S)
Laudnam Bunches (A, H)
Blue-Eyed Stranger (A, H)
Constant Billy (A, S)
Getting Upstairs (B, H)

Lewes

Henry Harvey (A, S)
Fat Bellied Woman (A, H)
De Montfort's Stand (A, S)
Over the Hills (A, S)
Southover (A, H)

Fieldtown

Nutting Girl (A, H, jig)
Balance The Straw (A, S)
Valentines (A, H)
Dearest Dicky (B, H)

Adderbury

Oh Dear Mother (A, S)
Shepherd's Hey (A)
Bluebells of Scotland (A, S)
Shooting (A, S)

Bucknell

Queen's Delight (B, H)
Room For the Cuckold (A, S)
The Willow Tree (A, H)

Other

Hinton: Rambling Sailor (B, H)
Much Wenlock: Much Wenlock (A, S)
Upton: Stick (A, S)
Winster: Processional (H)
Bampton: Flowers of Edinburgh (B, H)
Sherborne: Monk's March (A, H)
Sherborne: Go and Enlist for a Soldier (B, H, jig)
Eynsham: Brighton Camp (B, H, Processional)
Bampton: Bonny Green Garters (B, H)
Unknown: Valiant Soldier (B, S)
Abingdon: Princess Royal (B, H)
Sherborne: Orange in Bloom (B, H)
Jockey to the Fair (B, H)
Saturday Night (B, H)
Brighton Stick (B, S)

BMM Figure Sequences in some Main Styles

This Year's Officers

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Squire:Doug Jewitt
Bagman:Andy Giles
Foreman:Glen Redman & Chris Rudd
Music: John Watcham
Stands:Graham Curry
Sticks: Tarquin & Colin
Kit: Dave
Day of Dance Organizer: Wayne Murray
Web: Graeme Walker

Photos

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View our archive here.

Add your pics to our flickr pool here.

Contact Us

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info{at}brightonmorris.co.uk or if it doesn't work, brightonmorris{at}gmail.com

Join The Morris!

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If you want to try something new and different why not try Morris Dancing. You will find that it is aerobic, sociable and most important, it's fun! Brighton Morris Men enjoy the camaraderie of a gentleman's drinking club, with the rigour and excitement of belonging to an elite dance team and the buzz of being first rate entertainers. The group consists of over twenty men from many different professions and backgrounds, with an age range from 20 to 65 and waist sizes to match. All of our members are chums. In joining we offer you an oasis of stress free fun every Thursday, a way to keep fit, and the opportunity to visit loads of different pubs. Try it a whole new world could be waiting for you...

We welcome new male dancers at any time. No experience is necessary and you can be as musically illiterate as you like. We will take you through the stepping and moves in simple fun training sessions teaching you rhythm and timing and allowing you to grow in confidence at your own pace.

PRACTICES

Practices take place every Thursday, from the first week in October, through to May. You'll find us at the Hanover Centre, Southover Street, Brighton from 8.00pm to 10.00pm with a debriefing in the Sir Charles Napier afterwards.

To join simply turn up at one of our practices or contact Brighton Morris if you are curious and want to know more. What do you have to lose? only the very small cost of an E-Mail. We will try and answer your questions and allay your fears!

The History of Brighton Morris

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Thanks to Sean Goddard.

Brighton Morris Men can trace their origins to the University of Sussex in 1966. Originally called the University of Sussex Morris Men, we still dance in the University's colours of gold, wine and purple. The side owes its origins to the Chanctonbury Ring Morris Men, who under the auspices of the Morris Ring, had been encouraged to 'spread the word' in the University. The side consisted of students who, on completion of their degrees would either move on to Chanctonbury Ring (lower 2nd class and thirds), or stay with the University side (Firsts and upper 2nd class). John Samuels and Steve Evans left the University side for Chanctonbury Ring. Malcolm Smale danced with both Chanc's and BMM for a season, then decided to stay permanently with BMM. John Allen made the journey from the Ring to the University when he started his PhD. In the late 1970's the two sides began to go their separate ways.

Keith Trampleasure was the last squire of the University side. At the end of the Summer of 1982 the side changed its name to Brighton Morris Men. Malcolm Smale was its first squire. The two sides remain on good terms with each other and dance out together once a season. There follows an incomplete list of previous squires and bagmen:

YEAR	SQUIRE	BAGMAN
1966-67	Charlie Bigley (Captain) Squire: Dave Cratchitt	Unknown
1968 - 70	Charlie Bigley (Captain) Squire: Dave Cratchitt	Unknown
1977	Jim Pitts	Stuart Raymond
1978	Roger Keely	Stuart Raymond
1979	Paul Taylor
1980	Jonathan Dutton
1981	Doug Cunningham / Keith Trampleasure	Keith Trampleasure
1982	Keith Trampleasure	Malcolm Smale
1983	Malcolm Smale	Sean Goddard
1984	Sean Goddard	James Stonhold
1985	Mike Mussell	James Stonhold
1986	Paul Singleton	Darryl Lawrence
1987	Paul Scholey	Ian Marchant
1988	Brian Ablett	James Stonhold
1989	James Stonhold	Graham Curry
1990	Chris Gilbert	Graham Curry
1991	Darryl Lawrence	Keith Trampleaure
1992	Glen Redman	Chris Mears
1993	Ian Marchant	Jim Cunningham
1994	Simon Lawrence	Keith Trampleasure
1995	Graham Curry	John Mountney
1996	Keith Trampleasure	Nick Hearn
1997	Nick Hearn	Nick Ellmore
1998	Ian Lamb	John Mountney
1999	Andrew Partington	Yogi Allen
2000	Colin Mitchell	Yogi Allen
2001	Nick Ellmore	Yogi Allen
2002	Chris Mears	Andrew Partington
2003	Yogi Allen	Dave Smith
2004	Charlie Cain
2005	Dave Smith	Charlie Cain
2006	Cristoph von Kurthy	Graham Curry
2007	John Watcham	Graham Curry
2008	Mark Price	Graham Curry
2009	Andy Giles	Chris Rudd
2010	Chris Rudd	Andy Giles

The Blurb

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2010

Fashion icon and raconteur Mahatma Gandhi, whilst eating a sumptuous chapatti during a Morris dancing performance, noted with coy abandonment that; then they laugh at you. Strangely the “they” he was talking about between toothless sucks on the chapatti was you the great British public. Now consider which stage of this path to enlightenment you may have reached?

Clearly having stopped, stared, muttered “nutters” and submitted to a chap demanding dosh, you are past the ﬁrst stage. If by chance you are giggling hysterically at the nonsensical sight of bearded geezers dressed oddly, dancing in rhythm, and drinking to excess, you may have reached the second stage. Possibly you have already hit the third stage buffers and are violently irked by a bunch of beer bellies blocking the Queenʼs highway.

As a philistine you may agree with Edmund Blackadderʼs observation of Morris Dancing as
“the most fatuous, tenth-rate entertainment ever devised by man.” More sinisterly you may view
our exhibition of this ancient English dance form in the same way as the puritan Christopher
Fetherston, who, writing in 1582, described it as “light, lewde and lascivious dauncing.”

Brighton Morris have been around for 43 years and have yet to experiment with the lewd and
lascivious approach to move you on to the fourth stage. We prefer, like Gandhi, to seduce you with a display of jocular masculinity, elegant ﬂights of nimbleness, and an ebullient burp.

However, we would upbraid the saintly Gandhi for choosing a chapatti to watch the Morris. It is, in our opinion, best observed intoxicated through a glass ﬁlled with the sumptuous amber liquid of Harvey's Ale.

2009

Barnacles are fascinating creatures and interestingly can be directly linked to Morris Dancing! Charles Darwin made an exhaustive study of these gritty crustaceans and determined that they provided an excellent support for his radical evolutionary theories. He was able to demonstrate that their adhesive qualities changed over generations according to the type of environment they were exposed to; he also discovered that the male existed as a tiny parasitic creature living off the female host.

Now if Charlie had taken the time to extradite himself from the endless biopsy of slimy things he could, instead, have studied the exciting world of Morris Dancing and reached very similar conclusions. Morris Dancing has been around for at least 600 years and in that time has evolved from a poncy court dance to the highly dynamic and anarchic street theatre that you are witnessing today.

Modern Darwinists have postulated that Morris Men represent an evolutionary dead end with a culture and dress sense that directly impairs their fertility as well as their ability to secure attractive breeding mates. They survive, in a parasitic sense, by pounding the streets with an erotic ritualistic display similar to that utilised by the Great Crested Grebe to seduce and mesmerise the unsuspecting female of the species. Oddly this seems to work, with the musk, athleticism, tummy wobble, and humour providing an intoxicating aphrodisiac mix; irresistible to ladies of a certain ilk! As for adhesive qualities try separating a Morris man’s grip from his Pewter tankard filled with the amber nectar of Harvey’s Best Bitter. A grip and beer your average Barnacle would die for!

Our Kit

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