HORWICH ORIGINAL POLKA
| FIGURES OF THE DANCE |
| Cast In | Back to Back | Stars | Chain |
| Polka Around | Polka Across | Final Figure |
An amended version of a dance from the Horwich Prize Medal Morris Dancers. This is not the Horwich Polka from 1908. Trefor collected this around 1970 and at around that time danced with Horwich. Now his notes date this dance as 1905. But Roland of Horwich tells me that it was created by the team around 1970. Make of that what you will.
Memories Once upon a many years ago we got an invite to Saddleworth Rushcart, so long ago in fact that the invite was to the Shrogys. Not long before we got the invite the Saddleworth team had been on TV in a documentary item in which they made it pretty clear women had "nowt to do with Morris". So that gave us a problem as the team had an invite to dance at Shibden Hall on the same day - the Sunday. After some discussion along the lines of "Saddleworth is a great honour" versus "We're a mixed side and we like it that way" we came up with a compromise. The men would go to saddleworth, the women to Shibden. Problem! Only one musician. Solution the Tony Bacon, the musician goes with the men because it's a walking job the women take a tape recorder to Shibden. Women not happy but that's the deal.
Comes the day and Alan, for who the Wars of the Roses never ended, is making dire comments about Lancashire as we stand in the rain waiting for things to start up. On finding that event one is a race up the hill to the church pulling the cart Alan's view is spreading in the team. Once at the church we stand around for a while in the rain until the pub opens. Watching the rain from the pub we ask the dear leader what's going on. "Dancing starts after the church service and it's in alphabetic order". Rapid team conflab leads to next question "Where's the first team then?". "Waiting for the rain to ease up". So we volunteer to start the dancing and hammer through Original. At the end of the dance we are well wet. Trefor then asks "What do you want to do next?". "Get back to Yorkshire" comes the joint reply and we head for the transports.
As we crest the Pennines Yorksire is bathed in sunlight and Alan can be heard muttering "I told you we should never have left". Rather than waste the day we decide to head for Shibden and see if we can blag a dance with the women. As we park up several of the girls spot us and run towrds us with open arms. Manfully we prepare to accept the thanks for returning to the fold, agreeing not to mention the rain etc. Out moment of glory is shattered when the girls pass us and grab Tony. The extension lead for the tape recorder is too short and they had been trying to work out how to solve the problem when we arrived. Only after a lot of grovelling were the men allowed to get into any dancing that day.