Dancing In The Street At The 2010 Chippenham Folk Festival

A Memory of Chippenham.

For many years morris sides have danced in the streets and pub gardens around Chippenham during the annual folk festival. Its a popular venue in any morris dancer's calendar.

Whitethorn Morris and their Whitethorn Band made a trip from their home town of Harrow to join in the Folk Festval fun. Most years we have encountered poor weather and any rain soon dampens the enthusiasm of dancers and scatters the crowds of onlookers. On this occasion the 2010 May Bank Holiday produced an entire day of dry weather and even a few hours of glorious sunshine.

The crowds came out and applauded to encourage the musicians and dancers! As the day progressed the music and dancing became vigorous - helped by the drink no doubt. Our dancing friends from "Dawnswyr Tipyn O Bopeth" (in Carmarthen) shared a High Street dance spot with us exactly where this view is shown.

The Whitethorn Band and Whitethorn Morris Dancers later took part in the afternoon's Grand Parade down the High Street to the arena stage by the river where there must have been more than a thousand people gathered to watch us. I played my piano accordian along with the other musicians and the dancers skipped through a series of jigs and polkas the whole way.

What fun and what memories!