Morris

Ailz used to run with the Saddleworth Morris. They tried to teach her to dance but there's a little skipping half step she could never master. Some of the dancers we saw in Hastings yesterday hadn't mastered it either (some had) but the great thing is that they exist at all. The way the wits and comics belabour it you'd have thought Morris would have been shamed into the grave decades ago but here it still is- bells, sticks, beards and toppers (Southern sides don't wear clogs, alas)- done well, done badly but always with love. We saw men and women's sides from Kent, Sussex and London. "Makes you proud to be English," I said to Ailz. "Yes, it does", she said. And we both meant it.