Stave dancing

Having effectively died-out in the 1920s, interest in the style revived in the 1980s, and today a number of Morris and country dancing teams perpetuate the tradition.

[3] Modern dancing staves consist of a wooden pole, typically four to six feet in length, topped with an emblem of either wood or brass and often decorated with ribbons.

One society prescribed that stewards must wear white moleskin trousers, whilst another specifically banned smocks.

[3] In addition to their principal function of providing sickness and death benefits, friendly societies also had a lively social side intended to foster fraternity amongst their members.

This manifested itself in the annual ‘club walk’, a social occasion that usually involved a parade, church service, and dinner, along with music and other entertainments.

Few primary sources are known although a letter in the Helm Collection[5] at University College, London gives an account of stave dancing during club walks in Shrawley, Worcestershire around 1880:[6] My grandfather died two years ago and with him went a great deal of knowledge of what used to happen in Shrawley on Whit-Monday and Midsummer's Day.

The dancing seems to have been processional in character, headed by the local dignitaries, starting and finishing at the "Rose & Crown"[7] and perambulating the bounds of the parish.

The walk took place at Whit & Midsummer.Such other contemporary references as are known to exist, mostly newspaper reports and friendly society minute books, suggest that the tradition had largely died out by the late 1920s, the last recorded instance being at Shepton Beauchamp, near Ilminster, in 1928.

After examining as many contemporary references as could be found, he concluded that stave dancing not only grew out of the social activities of the south-western friendly societies, but that it represented a distinct style of English folk-dance worthy of standing alongside other English dancing traditions; conclusive evidence of many of whose origins is equally obscure.

The minute book of Fifehead Magdalen in north Dorset states that Haste to the Wedding, Pop Goes the Weasel, the Dorsetshire March and Spithead Fleet would be practiced and danced at the stations on the walk.

At Stourton Caundle, near Sturminster Newton in Dorset, a note exists of a set of three dances.For many years he strove to see the tradition become accepted as a bona fide style of English folk-dance and to encourage its performance through a series of workshops and lectures.