Known as ‘the morris’ to its devotees, morris dancing is a traditional fund-raising attraction for village fêtes. Its precise origin is unknown but it certainly has a medieval, if not pagan, flavour. Morris dancing was first documented in 1448 and Shakespeare includes a reference to it in ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ (1623) with: “As fit as … a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day …”, indicating that it was by then an essential element of the 1st May celebration.

There are several types of morris dancing, with the most famous costume being all-white, adorned with ribbons, bells, hankies and flowers on the hats. The dancers have sticks or swords which they hold aloft, dance around or tap together. Accompanying musicians range from a single fiddler or piper to a full band.

Some morris ‘sides’ (troupes) wear multi-coloured or mainly black ribboned costumes with black masks or black, grey, green or red face paint and many have a mixture of white and black clothing. Some sides do not have bells and some perform fire dances which are more energetic and involve whooping and shouting. What they all have in common is their entertainment value, as in this battle of the beer trays:

(Top image: Robin Webster at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Mrs. Mary Tealby (1801-65, née Bates) was born in Cambridgeshire but on moving to her mother’s Holloway home in 1860, she was so upset at seeing emaciated dogs roaming the London streets that she began to take them in. She found some local stables and named her project ‘The Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs’. This was the founding of what became known as ‘Battersea Dogs Home‘, or ‘Battersea Dogs and Cats Home‘ since 2002.

Mary did not live to see it relocate to Battersea in south-west London, adjacent to Battersea Power Station, in 1871 but she would doubtless have been thrilled to know that well over three million dogs and cats would benefit from her  efforts. Battersea Dogs Home is so famous it has entered everyday language as the go-to place for stray dogs. Its fame has been increased by the TV programme ‘For the Love of Dogs’, which shows the progress of particular dogs.

Although the Home has taken cats since 1883, this is not so well-known. However, cats are re-homed in an average of twenty-two days, as opposed to thirty days for dogs. The Home has its own veterinarians, groomers and behaviour specialists, so each animal receives professional care.

(Image: Jim O’Donnell at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)