"It's just not street cred," sighs Brian.Mike Garland, of East Suffolk Morris Men, says 200 years ago fathers passed the tradition on to sons. "But now, especially in large urban centres, it's difficult to attract young men. They're just not interested." Surely, one way for this exciting and entertaining art form to survive into the millennium would be to pass it on to daughters "But it's a male tradition Part of our folk heritage. Hunt The Morris Man has replaced Hunt The Squirrel as a national pastime; Morris baiting rather than Morris dancing has become embedded in our folk consciousness. But, as Morris Federation chairman Janet Dowling acknowledges, "the bulge of people who took up dancing 20 years ago in the revival are now getting progressively older". "You should make a point of trying every experience once," Sir Arnold Bax once famously advised, "excepting incest and folk-dancing." Even our nerdish Prime Minister joined in the fun last year when, to loud guffawing in the House, he joked that a Blair government would undoubtedly install Paddy Ashdown as Minister for Morris Dancing.Tony Forster argues it is "an exciting, entertaining, creative and contemporary art form". But we uphold all the traditional values." Which ones? "Well, we don't think it looks right having women dancing on the set." His team was banned from the Ring a few years ago for loutish behaviour.
"They didn't like us drinking at breakfast."Perhaps the traditionalists, no strangers to the joys of inebriation - nor, indeed, to cavorting naked in empty fields at the crack of dawn - are threatened by this tongue-in-cheek approach, considering it a twisted reflection of their public image. These standards, presumably, do not include bashing each other over condommed heads with bits of scaffolding."A lot of people look down their noses at us," complains squire Kevin Bulmer. "They think we're not doing it seriously." How can he expect anyone to take Morris Men in cool shades, fetishistic footwear and studded leather jackets seriously? "Yes, we wear contraceptives on our heads but that's for the fertility dance Yes, we're a bit outrageous. But, according to the programme "all the clubs that seek membership of the Ring must be up to the required standard".
"Over the years the ladies have felt a bit left out, I suppose. But it just doesn't look very nice." In what way, exactly, does he find female dancers aesthetically displeasing? "Well, it's just their, er, anatomy." Brian Baird believes the the presence of women cramps the chaps' style. "We can't perform the same opposite them." His Belchamp Morris Men performed "completely starkers" on 1 May, something a mixed group might have found extremely awkward.Would Stuart and Brian approve of the Royal Liberty Morris Men? Being an all-male team, which exuberantly upholds the heritage every Thursday night at Hornchurch Arts Centre, their appearance at this weekend's gathering would seem assured. "You are required please." Sarah, the bagman (secretary), wants to finish the double-footer so they can all get down the pub before closing time "Shortly," mutters Alf. Sarah clicks her tongue and, in a matter of seconds, her father-in-law is joining in the traditional mantra: "Every morning as true as a clock, somebody hears the postman's knock." The violin starts up, followed by the melodeon, and soon he is hop, skip and jangling around the village hall in time-honoured fashion.After its near collapse three years ago the "re-mixed" Mount Bures team is enjoying a revival Not that this impresses fundamentalist Stuart Moxon.
Despite acknowledging "a big problem with recruitment", the Thaxted member insists Morris must remain a male fertility dance. There's just not enough men to do it!" He begins a short, sharp history of the movement, only to be interrupted at the end of the Great War ("when the lady schoolteachers kept it going")."Alf, we're doing the Postman's Knock," a feisty female voice informs him. They're not even allowed on the coaches which take the groups out to the dance sites Some of those 42-seater coaches were half full. It's a bit ridiculous, really." With his bushy beard and abiding interest in English folklore, John might easily be mistaken for a Morris traditionalist. But, having experienced the sad decline of the pastime during an intense 13-year involvement, he has become a Morris modernist; if it were not for the infusion of new blood in the early 1990s, his beloved Mount Bures dancers would have surely gone under.Alf White, the group's sagely squire (Morris-speak for leader) strokes his greying whiskers and nods in agreement "Most teams are short of dancers. Others will showcase the absurdist antics of biker groups, who point to a tradition stretching back to 1960s Python. But the anatomically correct Morris Ring continues to declare itself a testosterone-charged, headbanger-free zone.John Couch remembers seeing women at a Ring meeting once "But they were serving at the feast.
Some will parade the talents of the dreaded mixed Morris groups, who point to a tradition of female involvement stretching back to 17th-century Kidlington. And sticks will be banged on the ground to drive off "demons", like the leather-jacketed louts who wave spanners, bash each other with scaffold poles and wear condoms on their heads. Over the coming months, Britain will be awash with back-to-basics festivals featuring traditional song and dance. The quiet, medieval streets of Thaxted will witness another orgy of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll this weekend. Or, as the Morris Ring would prefer, a celebration of fertility, real ale and folk music. After 60 years, the Essex villagers have got used to the annual invasion of happy hanky-wavers and barmy bell-janglers. Whether their crops have flourished accordingly is another matter. Certainly, lots of noise will be made to frighten away "evil spirits", such as the female lancers challenging one of the last, great bastions of male supremacy.