Bath Uni, Women’s Morris and a revolution.

I find, as I travel through life, that there are many coincidences or serendipitous things that happen when you’re not quite expecting them too.

Last weekend Token Women, formed 30 years ago and named to reflect the low profile of female instrumentalists on the folk scene, did our first gig of the celebration year and that gig was in Bath. In the week leading up to that gig I was also sorting out some publicity for a Blowzabella workshop day coming up at the end of March in Morecambe. One of the names that appeared whilst sorting out people to help with publicity was a woman called Fiona Frank. I knew I knew the name but it wasn’t until I found a picture of her that all sorts of memories flicked back into my frontal lobes. These were helped along by various communiques between us where we were reminiscing about Bath University, women’s Morris dancing, Morris dancing generally and my mum.

The Bath ceilidh last week was in a school hall on the edges of Bath but back in the day Bath University was a hot bed of folky danceness. I’m talking second half of the 1970’s into the 1980’s and they carried on beyond actually but less frequently for me.

Bath university Ceilidhs were fab and a monthly must on the Fraser Women’s calendar . When we first started going the vehicles my mum usually had were often purchased to allow my sister and I to sleep in the back on late nights. Vans with a mattress and bedding. We lived in Cheltenham and Bath was a good hours drive away. In addition dances at that time ran from 8pm to mid night. That was the case for a long time but now things in the UK have changed, possibly due to hall hire fees going up past midnight, and dances end between 11 and 11.30pm.

Another memory was the long skirt or dress. Laura Ashley used to sell material ends and many people had these skirts that were made up of patch work bits and pieces. I’d wear one of those if I wasn’t in one of my much loved pairs of brightly coloured loons…yep. Who remembers loons? Bell bottom trousers made of cotton and tight at the waist..sitting on the hips and quite often available in every colour under the sun. They weren’t expensive either. There was one tiny little boutique shop in Cheltenham that had them and I was a regular. The fact that I had a few pairs meant they were affordable as mum had little or no money to spare. How great to have  a fashion item that was affordable….and when they started to wear out you patched them with whatever multi-coloured material you could find..also deemed to be a fashionable thing to do. Most of the rest of our wardrobes came from second hand shops and Fi and I learnt quickly to choose our own. I do remember going through a black and bright red phase too. All because I’d picked up this tatty, black, velvetine coat with frayed cuffs, that I loved. Steered well clergies of the Afghan coats , they stank.

Those jackets in the photo were part of those times. Multi coloured quilts things and mum wore a black nurses cape. I think my sister looks gorgeous in the picture.

There was either the three of us in the car or four if Fran our nominally adopted sister travelled with us. We could pick her up in Painswick on the way through. I say nominal as this was someone that just became part of us and still is although that relationship isn’t formalised in any sense. More than a friend but not actually a sister…never the less..family. We knew that drive well. Up over the hill looking down at the twinkly lights of Cheltenham below and on the way to Painswick you’d go past Prinknash Abbey. Quite a few people had Prinknash pottery tankards as they were warmer and a bit nicer to drink out of than pewter ones and tankards were all the rage.

Then further up the hill you’d go through a tiny village called Paradise and just as you entered, there was the ‘Adam and Eve’ pub. Sadly it doesn’t exist anymore but I loved the fact it was there and the village name etc.

Once we’d picked up Fran it was back on the main road and past Painswick Church which reportedly has 99 Yew trees as historically they never managed to get the 100th to grow. I have no idea if it’s true or not and don’t wish to find out as the truth can sometimes get in the way of a good story. Then you still had to get passed Stroud and onto Bath. Up that huge hill to Bath University and entered a concrete monstrosity that took on a meaning of its own.

When you came through the door to the hall the dance floor was sunk down so you had to go down steps to get on it. If you walked round the edge you came in on, to the left and then round to your right, you ended up on what was used as the stage.

We had such fun. Some of my school friends used to go and we’d all get in a dance set together and wizz up and down. I had romantic liaisons too over one season …(otherwise known as a kiss and a fumble) with a particular young boy who’s name I can’t remember. Other times boyfriends came across with us or we travelled with them. It just reminded me that those evenings seemed endless. That perspective on time where everything feels slower when you’re younger. I only get anything approaching that feeling now if I have an actual holiday were I go away and refuse to look at emails etc and just have long warm days stretching out ahead. Bliss!.

But it wasn’t just the monthly dances. There were workshop days too. Often run by the legend that was Roy Dommit. Almost as round as he was high but very light on his feet and very knowledgable about the different traditions . I had a go at them all and I’m pretty sure that it was as a direct result of that and people like Tubby Reynolds that mum and others formed Women’s Morris teams. England’s Glory being one of the first reveal teams if not the first.

When I went to a funeral recently one of the people reading said how the woman that had died had gone to an inspirational workshop in Sidmouth run by an iconic women’s Morris side and because of that had gone away with others to form their own teams. Well that iconic team was Englands Glory set up by mum and other women in Cheltenham and no doubt running that workshop. I would have been there as part of it.

So Bath University has a special place in my heart for good times and expanding my knowledge of dance at an early age. Mostly the evenings were inclusive with nobody making too much fuss if you went wrong and plenty of people around to help you get it right. Rather different from one dance I went to in Gloucestershire, early on, with mum and Fi where one guy, who had the most ridiculous moustaches, told me off for going the wrong way in the Dorset Forehand Reel. I should have used them as a handle bar to do a wheely but I didn’t have that sort of confidence then. He nearly put me off for life but not quite. There were enough people around to encourage me to join in again and to tell me he was a stuck up prig…which he was. It’s one of the reasons these days why I won’t harangue people from the stage. I like to try and help people get the dance right but the main thing is it’s social dancing and meant to be fun.