Key Points from a long history of Morris Dancing in and from Plymouth
1482: The Receivers' Accounts of Plymouth record a payment made for dancing in the streets of Plymouth
1528-9: The city accounts record: Itm gyuyn in Rewarde to the duke of Suffolkes srunt wt the Daunsynge bere & the dausyng wyff xxd
1540-1: The city accounts record: Itm pd for ix yards of cloth to make a coat for Tom hordson the ffoole pce the yard viijd vjs (6s.)
1564-1577: The city accounts record appearances by the morris dancers.
1566-7: the city accounts record: Morice dancers 5s. for a breakfast; 20d. new cutting the Gogmagog
1574-5: The city accounts record: Itm pd to hym thatt played apon the hoby horsse vjd (6d.)
1583: Sir Humphrey Gilbert left Plymouth for Newfoundland in an attempt to found a colony. A member of his company [18-20] wrote of the preparations:
"....for solace of our people, and allurment of the savages we were provided of musike in good variety, not omitting the least toys, as Morris dancers, Hobby Horse and Maylike conceits to delight the savage people, whom we intended to winne by all faire meanes possible."
1965: Plymouth Morris Men (PMM) founded.
1970: Plymouth Morris Men reformed
1986: Weekend of Dance on Jersey with Helier Morris, Jersy Lilies and OBJ Morris. Dancing on St Catherine’s Quay at 30ºC. The infamous “shoelaces” incident when JS crawled across the floor and undid the shoelaces of Lovely Lynn with his teeth although some suspect the aspiration was her bodice! JHS got back to Exeter before realising his luggage was still on the island!
May 1988: PMM, always last team to bed when away, performed “When the saints go marching in” around the corridors of the accommodation at 5:30 am, before retiring to bed.
198x?: dancing on a floating pontoon in the Hamble at the Jolly Sailor in Old Bursledon.
1991: Ocean Quay, Southampton "With Bow Street Rapper you've seen how morris can be done," then "with Plymouth Morris Men you've seen how it should be done"
1993: PMM first use of cutlasses in morris.
1994: The human fruit machine at the Fordingbridge St George’s Day fête
1995: May Day dancing broadcast on BBC breakfast TV (Plymouth had just got a high-speed wire to London) and VE Day 50th anniversary (one week later) dancing broadcast on BBC national news.
1996: Filmed for, and appeared on, the video of Sidmouth International Folk Festival.
1997: Weekend of Dance with a Plymouth CityBus double decker for the tour. On the way to Tavistock, a WPC pulled-in the bus for an emissions check .. she ended up in the middle of dance whilst her team checked the exhaust.
July 1998: Danced at the Annual Meeting of the Morris Ring in East Devon and JS caught taking the early morning sun at Beer
(pre-beer, courtesy of Hilary Warburton as published in Autumn 1999 English Dance & Song).
September 1998: Plymouth Morris Men’s first web page goes live @ http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9835/men.htm
October 1998: Annual Meeting of the Fools and Animals of the Morris Ring hosted by Plymouth Morris Men: weekend of atrocious rain!!
February 1999: danced on the M5 approaching Strensham Services while the emegency services dealt with an accident at the M50 intersection.
October 1999:Wessex Morris Men's Ale at Cerne Abbas: policeman arrives in pub at twenty past midnight to announce he will have to take action if anyone is still there when he returns in ten minutes!
May 2000: JS missed the sponsored trip to Jersey for Helier MM weekend of dance whilst still on intravenous drugs for group B-meningococcal septicaemia.
200x?: TI presented his posterior for horse-whipping in the pub in Ringwood
June 2000: Zennor (tip of Cornwall) teaching German insurance agents to dance Border morris, ... the fee for this one event was about the same as our normal annual turnover from dancing out.
April 2001: St George's Day lunch-time: morris danced on the battlements of Royal Citadel for/with Royal Marines.
July 2001: Several PMM members joined Mendip Morris Men for a cultural exchange with ODRA dance team in Ostrava - Czech Republic
... what an excellent week, including day trips to Poland and Slovakia
... the ODRA ladies are exceptionally attractive and the beer is 30p/pint
… TS first met Eva who would become his wife.
August 2001: Danced Not for Joe on the midnight Torpoint Ferry returning home from a Wreckers gig
April 2002: JS presented a talk on morris dancing to the regional conference of the University of the Third Age.
June 2002: Plymouth Morris Men at Thaxted Morris Ring Meeting in Essex for the first time.
Thaxted MM version of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is quite haunting.
August 2002: PMM charity train trip for Mustard Tree Macmillan (cancer) Centre raised >£200.
October 2002: Plymouth and Trigg MM support the Annual Unconvention of the Fools and Beasts of the Morris Ring !!!
Danced in the National Marine Aquarium (not in the tank) within a metre of a live shark.
November 2002: PMM day of dance in memory of Dennis Sharman raised >£200 for Cancer Research UK.
June 2003: PMM with Plymouth twinning in Brest – Brittany: spontaneous dance session at 8:00 pm with temperature at 30°C drew crowd of ~1000.
May 2004: Plymouth Morris Men rail trip for charity raised ~£522 for St Lukes Hospice, matched by Wessex Trains.
2004: Brest Maritime Festival. Dancing took place on several of the ships including The Mathew and The Chopin.
October 2004: PMM hosted Fools and Animals of the Morris Ring on a very wet and windy weekend (again) !
May 2005: Helmond - Netherlands by coach for morris weekend (there are two teams in Holland – the other at Utrecht).
October 2005: Brest - Brittany with Morris Men to support Quatre Moulins district literary festival: Breton girl outside the Tara Inn turned out to be the sister of the wife of a former research colleague!
July 2006: To Hungary for County Wandering Festival ... and over the border into Serbia on the spare day at the end. A very hot coach broken down on the motorway late in the day with Plymouth and a Swedish team on board. The bride in Szeged was surprised to become the centre of the Rose Tree dance!
August 2007: PMM danced for charity cheque presentation on the Plymouth Breakwater with permission of QHM
September 2007: several members went to Prague - Czech Republic as temporary members of Dartington Morris Men for a long weekend including a lunchtime reception on the lawn of the British Embassy after the statue of Sir Winston Churchill took up the DMM kit!
March 2008: Plymouth Morris Men perform at South Asia Society dance event – also bhangra/dhandia etc
May 2008: Plymouth Morris Men at the International Sword Spectacular in York.
December 2008: Plymouth Morris Men hung in public (exhibition of oil paintings – total price £35000)
August 2009: Plymouth Morris Men attend International Festival de Folklore at Montréjeau ~ Haute-Garonne (SW France).
March 2010: Plymouth Morris Men danced the Sport Relief mile on Plymouth Hoe and raised £939.
May 2011: Plymouth Morris Men danced on HMS Bounty
September 2011: Excellent Morris dance day tour (inc. stag lunch/Portgate and evening wedding reception/Trebarwith).
March 2012: The morris bagman demonstrated that he could organise a “session” in a (St Austell) brewery.
July 2012: JS joined City of Auckland Morris Dancers (NZ) and Ragged Band Border Morris (Australia) for their respective practice nights.
October 2012: NT Stourhead to greet newly-wedded couple emerging from marriage service. We selected the bride-to-be as rose for a morris dance in May and he proposed while the photos were being taken.
September 2013: Plymouth-Brest (France) twinning 50th anniversary with ~150 travelling and morris dancing on ferry home.
June 2014: Plymouth Morris Men joined in with Lord Mayor's Day parade, but were later refused entry to The Hyde Park pub for being in fancy dress. That made the local papers and the Daily Mirror.
November 2014: Three daytime performances of the mummer's play in Looe (Square, Ship and seafront)
July 2015: Hartley Morris Men's Morris Ring Meeting at Tonbridge in Kent. Epic song session on service bus back to town.
2017/18: 25th anniversary of dancing with cutlasses
2020: 50th anniversary of the formation of Plymouth Morris Men. 400th anniversary of the departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth on the Mayflower. Women are invited to join and Plymouth Morris Men change their name to Plymouth Morris. Plymouth Morris host the 364th Ring Meeting.
1482: The Receivers' Accounts of Plymouth record a payment made for dancing in the streets of Plymouth
1528-9: The city accounts record: Itm gyuyn in Rewarde to the duke of Suffolkes srunt wt the Daunsynge bere & the dausyng wyff xxd
1540-1: The city accounts record: Itm pd for ix yards of cloth to make a coat for Tom hordson the ffoole pce the yard viijd vjs (6s.)
1564-1577: The city accounts record appearances by the morris dancers.
1566-7: the city accounts record: Morice dancers 5s. for a breakfast; 20d. new cutting the Gogmagog
1574-5: The city accounts record: Itm pd to hym thatt played apon the hoby horsse vjd (6d.)
1583: Sir Humphrey Gilbert left Plymouth for Newfoundland in an attempt to found a colony. A member of his company [18-20] wrote of the preparations:
"....for solace of our people, and allurment of the savages we were provided of musike in good variety, not omitting the least toys, as Morris dancers, Hobby Horse and Maylike conceits to delight the savage people, whom we intended to winne by all faire meanes possible."
1965: Plymouth Morris Men (PMM) founded.
1970: Plymouth Morris Men reformed
1986: Weekend of Dance on Jersey with Helier Morris, Jersy Lilies and OBJ Morris. Dancing on St Catherine’s Quay at 30ºC. The infamous “shoelaces” incident when JS crawled across the floor and undid the shoelaces of Lovely Lynn with his teeth although some suspect the aspiration was her bodice! JHS got back to Exeter before realising his luggage was still on the island!
May 1988: PMM, always last team to bed when away, performed “When the saints go marching in” around the corridors of the accommodation at 5:30 am, before retiring to bed.
198x?: dancing on a floating pontoon in the Hamble at the Jolly Sailor in Old Bursledon.
1991: Ocean Quay, Southampton "With Bow Street Rapper you've seen how morris can be done," then "with Plymouth Morris Men you've seen how it should be done"
1993: PMM first use of cutlasses in morris.
1994: The human fruit machine at the Fordingbridge St George’s Day fête
1995: May Day dancing broadcast on BBC breakfast TV (Plymouth had just got a high-speed wire to London) and VE Day 50th anniversary (one week later) dancing broadcast on BBC national news.
1996: Filmed for, and appeared on, the video of Sidmouth International Folk Festival.
1997: Weekend of Dance with a Plymouth CityBus double decker for the tour. On the way to Tavistock, a WPC pulled-in the bus for an emissions check .. she ended up in the middle of dance whilst her team checked the exhaust.
July 1998: Danced at the Annual Meeting of the Morris Ring in East Devon and JS caught taking the early morning sun at Beer
(pre-beer, courtesy of Hilary Warburton as published in Autumn 1999 English Dance & Song).
September 1998: Plymouth Morris Men’s first web page goes live @ http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9835/men.htm
October 1998: Annual Meeting of the Fools and Animals of the Morris Ring hosted by Plymouth Morris Men: weekend of atrocious rain!!
February 1999: danced on the M5 approaching Strensham Services while the emegency services dealt with an accident at the M50 intersection.
October 1999:Wessex Morris Men's Ale at Cerne Abbas: policeman arrives in pub at twenty past midnight to announce he will have to take action if anyone is still there when he returns in ten minutes!
May 2000: JS missed the sponsored trip to Jersey for Helier MM weekend of dance whilst still on intravenous drugs for group B-meningococcal septicaemia.
200x?: TI presented his posterior for horse-whipping in the pub in Ringwood
June 2000: Zennor (tip of Cornwall) teaching German insurance agents to dance Border morris, ... the fee for this one event was about the same as our normal annual turnover from dancing out.
April 2001: St George's Day lunch-time: morris danced on the battlements of Royal Citadel for/with Royal Marines.
July 2001: Several PMM members joined Mendip Morris Men for a cultural exchange with ODRA dance team in Ostrava - Czech Republic
... what an excellent week, including day trips to Poland and Slovakia
... the ODRA ladies are exceptionally attractive and the beer is 30p/pint
… TS first met Eva who would become his wife.
August 2001: Danced Not for Joe on the midnight Torpoint Ferry returning home from a Wreckers gig
April 2002: JS presented a talk on morris dancing to the regional conference of the University of the Third Age.
June 2002: Plymouth Morris Men at Thaxted Morris Ring Meeting in Essex for the first time.
Thaxted MM version of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is quite haunting.
August 2002: PMM charity train trip for Mustard Tree Macmillan (cancer) Centre raised >£200.
October 2002: Plymouth and Trigg MM support the Annual Unconvention of the Fools and Beasts of the Morris Ring !!!
Danced in the National Marine Aquarium (not in the tank) within a metre of a live shark.
November 2002: PMM day of dance in memory of Dennis Sharman raised >£200 for Cancer Research UK.
June 2003: PMM with Plymouth twinning in Brest – Brittany: spontaneous dance session at 8:00 pm with temperature at 30°C drew crowd of ~1000.
May 2004: Plymouth Morris Men rail trip for charity raised ~£522 for St Lukes Hospice, matched by Wessex Trains.
2004: Brest Maritime Festival. Dancing took place on several of the ships including The Mathew and The Chopin.
October 2004: PMM hosted Fools and Animals of the Morris Ring on a very wet and windy weekend (again) !
May 2005: Helmond - Netherlands by coach for morris weekend (there are two teams in Holland – the other at Utrecht).
October 2005: Brest - Brittany with Morris Men to support Quatre Moulins district literary festival: Breton girl outside the Tara Inn turned out to be the sister of the wife of a former research colleague!
July 2006: To Hungary for County Wandering Festival ... and over the border into Serbia on the spare day at the end. A very hot coach broken down on the motorway late in the day with Plymouth and a Swedish team on board. The bride in Szeged was surprised to become the centre of the Rose Tree dance!
August 2007: PMM danced for charity cheque presentation on the Plymouth Breakwater with permission of QHM
September 2007: several members went to Prague - Czech Republic as temporary members of Dartington Morris Men for a long weekend including a lunchtime reception on the lawn of the British Embassy after the statue of Sir Winston Churchill took up the DMM kit!
March 2008: Plymouth Morris Men perform at South Asia Society dance event – also bhangra/dhandia etc
May 2008: Plymouth Morris Men at the International Sword Spectacular in York.
December 2008: Plymouth Morris Men hung in public (exhibition of oil paintings – total price £35000)
August 2009: Plymouth Morris Men attend International Festival de Folklore at Montréjeau ~ Haute-Garonne (SW France).
March 2010: Plymouth Morris Men danced the Sport Relief mile on Plymouth Hoe and raised £939.
May 2011: Plymouth Morris Men danced on HMS Bounty
September 2011: Excellent Morris dance day tour (inc. stag lunch/Portgate and evening wedding reception/Trebarwith).
March 2012: The morris bagman demonstrated that he could organise a “session” in a (St Austell) brewery.
July 2012: JS joined City of Auckland Morris Dancers (NZ) and Ragged Band Border Morris (Australia) for their respective practice nights.
October 2012: NT Stourhead to greet newly-wedded couple emerging from marriage service. We selected the bride-to-be as rose for a morris dance in May and he proposed while the photos were being taken.
September 2013: Plymouth-Brest (France) twinning 50th anniversary with ~150 travelling and morris dancing on ferry home.
June 2014: Plymouth Morris Men joined in with Lord Mayor's Day parade, but were later refused entry to The Hyde Park pub for being in fancy dress. That made the local papers and the Daily Mirror.
November 2014: Three daytime performances of the mummer's play in Looe (Square, Ship and seafront)
July 2015: Hartley Morris Men's Morris Ring Meeting at Tonbridge in Kent. Epic song session on service bus back to town.
2017/18: 25th anniversary of dancing with cutlasses
2020: 50th anniversary of the formation of Plymouth Morris Men. 400th anniversary of the departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth on the Mayflower. Women are invited to join and Plymouth Morris Men change their name to Plymouth Morris. Plymouth Morris host the 364th Ring Meeting.