Sometimes 30th birthdays can be a bitter-sweet affair, but not for Hook Eagle Morris Men who this year celebrate three decades of Border Morris Dancing after joining forces in 1991.
We thought it would be a perfect time to explore their roots and find out what they’ve got planned for their 30-year celebrations.
CommunityAd were lucky enough to chat with John Ellis from the Hook Eagle Morris Men, who took us back to 1991 and talk about their formation as well as more recent developments.
John explained: “Back in 1991, the then vicar at St John the Evangelist in Hook borrowed money from the Winchester Dioceses to extend the church – he was successful and built an incredible set up for local clubs. However, he hadn’t figured out how to pay it back.
“A local chap was a Morris Dancer and arranged a group of guys to dance at the Church Fete and raise a fair amount of money. The half a dozen guys involved thought we’d actually like to carry on with this, it was a rather fun activity to do.
“From then on, a gentleman from the Yateley Morris Dancers said he’d be happy to help start a new team in Hook, but it would have to do a different type of dancing from his own group; who used the Cotswold Morris Dancing style.”
With the help of Yateley Morris Dancers, the Hook Eagle Morris Men was born, and they used the Border Morris Dancing style, which originated from the English/Welsh border and simply put, involved rhythmically hitting each other with sticks.
Within the first three years, the group has raised an astonishing £6,000, and the team continued to grow and welcome more experienced Morris Dancers, and over the years the group changed from a fundraising team to a team that went to festivals and travelled Europe and became well-known within the Morris world.
John added: “We are a friendly bunch of people, with 20 to 25 of us that are together 50 weeks of the year – if we aren’t dancing we are practicing – it’s a really nice mix of people from all different walks of life that just like having fun, drinking beer and hitting each other with sticks; what’s not to like?”
This year, the team are taking part in the Hartley Wintney Festival on 4th September to celebrate their 30th birthday, as well as a Barn Dance in the evening at Hook Community Centre, which you will need tickets for!