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"Robin Hood was the King of the Forest. He's a king, he's a freeman...
It's what they call rutting
season, in September, of the reindeer. If
you was to walk in, say, Bagot's Park, September - this month - your
life
wouldn't be worth living, amongst the reindeer. And it seems to
me that if - I dunno whether I'm right or not - it seems
to me, in my
mind, that to follow the Dance through, it's as if they used to dress
up in the skins of the animals on
this month, to take advantage of
their original state, living with these reindeers and that. I think
they tried to imitate,
sort of thing, that's my mind - of course it
may be wrong, but I don't think it is.
"If I was educated, I's study
Science, and I'd study Nature. But to
follow the Nature through, I walk many miles, and I walk all round
Bagot's Park,
and I see these things happen. I see the stag, the bid
one, standing bold, and brave, as much as to say: "Come any
farther...",
sort of thing. You know - it brings back memories to me,
though - it's Nature come true for me to dance this day, on this
date,
that it's the breeding season of - the stags, the deer, and all that.
They can't take it off my mind. I don't
care how much educated it is.
I still have my ideal of Life and Nature. And you can't beat Nature.
No-one on this earth
can beat Nature.
"In the Horn Dance there are six Horns, one Maid Marion, one Hobby
Horse, one Jester, and one Bow
and Arrow, the Musician, and the
Triangle.
"We start from the beginning. Mr James Fowell, the Leader of the Horn
Dance.
I carry the Big White Horn, which weighs approximately 26
pounds. Mr James Frost, he carries the Second White Horn weighing
about
19 pounds. There's a small white Horn, which Mr Thomas
Grimley's son, whose name I don't know, but he carries the
smallest
horn, weighing 15 pounds.
"There's Cyril Cole, he carries the second largest Horn. roughly a
matter
of 24 pounds. Then you come to the Second Blue, it's Brian
Houghton [?], works down Rugeley somewhere... he carries the
one about
19 pounds, then you come to the Third Blue, which is about 17 or 18
pounds.
"Then you come to Maid
Marion, Bernard Fowell, he's my own son, he's
what you call the collector. Then there's Dennis Fowell, the Jester,
he's
my own son. He's another collector.
"There's Douglas [Fowell] plays the melodion, he's what I can the
musician,
to give us a dance on the way, to liven us up a little; then
I have to fall back to the Bow and Arrow, which is Grimley
- another
Grimley - and then I fall back on to the little lad, - he is a
relation to me - the Hobby Horse.
"The
first place, the Leader, me, Mr James Fowell, I'm a working man,
I work on the Aerodrome as a general labourer. There's
my own son,
Bernard, he's in the Army now, at present, but he's just got leave out
of the Army to come and help me out
if I fail - which I don't think I
shall - but then there's Dennis, another son, he's the Jester. He's a
lorry driver.
He lives at Uttoxeter.
"Then there's Douglas. He's a working lad. He's what they call a
storeman, or under-storeman,
or something - but anyway, he rides about
9 miles there to work and about 9 miles back, and he works 10 hours a
day.
And there's another feller, another lad - I dunno - Mitchell's
[?] boy, a publican's son,. I don't know what he works at,
I think
he's a bit of a carpenter, something like that - and then you come to
Mr Frost - Mr James Frost, rather - he
works at a tan-yard, where they
tan your hide, the cow's hide, make leather of it - he rides 14 mile a
day to work.
"You
come to the little boy that I have to come and get to do the
triangle, well, they're only schoolchildren, but still I train
them, I
train them from schoolchildren, up in a manner that they can really
understand what they really are doing...
I bring them up from a
triangle-lad to do the bow and arrow, to the Horn Dancers, 'til they
get to as high as I get.
That's how I train all the lads I get.
" And you two people - you've come to see this - I hope you'll excuse
me,
for not having these people here. I have to train them from the
church. Now I don't want you to just think that they're
trained men,
'cause they're not. I have to have them from where I can get them
from, to perform this Dance. And I never
had no practice - only once
every twelvemonth. And I think we do our best for the people that come
and see - well, we
try to do our best - give them all we've got, and
we can't do no more.
"I do this, year in, year out, for the upkeep
of the family, so it
won't die down. I know that people come all the way from abroad - they
travel many a mile to come
and see this, but it's nothing to me to do
it for them. I do it with the greatest of pleasure, to uphold the
village,
the history... it concerns me while other people, of
different nations, and you as well, come to all this trouble just
to
see me do this, and talk about the times I've had, and the times I'm
going to have, I hope.
"I'm just a little
young lad of 67, that can run 6 miles today, and
I'm living in hopes tomorrow morning to show you that I'm right in
what
I say. All my lads, all my brothers before me... I'd 7 brothers
in France, in 1914, they all used to enjoy this day, and
we got them
off from out of France to come and dance in their khaki, rather than
it should fail, because I couldn't
get - because I was already in
Afghanistan. And the lads came, but I'm very sorry to say that two of
them never returned.
"I'm
only a young person, taking the people in my family life, I'm
young to what they was when they started, I mean my
great-great-grandfather...
my great-great grandfather and all those -
my great-granddad. My own father... and me. They did this then, I'm
led to
believe, from my own parents, which I've got to believe, I
haven't got to believe anyone else, only my own parents, as
they
handed it down to myself.,, that they used to dance in front of the
church every Sunday morning, for the poor of
the village. All proceeds
used to go to the Vicar's plate, in the church, and - I've got to
believe this - it comes
from my own parents - it has been followed
down from childhood to me. and I'm passing it on, from myself, to my
children.
I've got to do.
"I can't go by no formal talk, of what it was, and what it wasn't. I
have heard several people say
that it's never been out of the village.
Well, I know, from my own age, that it's been out of the village while
I've
been in it, as a boy. And it's been out far from the village. My
dad = my only father, never mind about my granddad and
my
great-granddad - they used to have three days of it, while I've been a
boy. And we used to dance the round we go
today, we used to dance that
on the Monday, right down Hoar Cross, Blithfield Hall and all round
Admaston, that way.
"On
the second day, on the Tuesday, we used to go Hoar Cross - Yoxall
- and round from Hamstall Ridware way, home. The third
day, we used to
go the Burton way, through Needwood Forest, and Newborough, and all
that way. But I can't believe that
people are talking now about -
younger than me - that it's never been out of the village. I say it
has, and no-one'll
ever tell me otherwise.
"It's a thing that they danced for the poor and the needy, in those
days. And it got to
be a - not a dance for the poor of the village,
but a dance in history, just to bring the history of the village back.
Not
for the poor of the village, but for the men that was doing it. To
upkeep the Hornds an the clothing, and pay their
expenses. I do it
today - I don't do it for nothing. I've got to pay the lads that are
with me, I've got to pay them
their wages. If I fail to collect the
same, I'm losing, we're all losing, a day's wage to do it. If I
failed to
pay them lads, they wouldn't come in...
"Well, I hear a lot of things said which I never take no notice of, in
the
village, because I've got my own mind, and I don't allow no-one to
penetrate it too far. I rule that - not anyone else.
But I do think
it's all wrong for people to talk - unnecessary - about what it is,
and what it isn't"
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