Reminiscences of a Victorian Squire
1 ~ Introduction
Actually, when I say "Victorian," I do live in Victoria. And I
really was, for a while, "Squire" ~ of a Morris Dance team, I mean.
Admittedly neither I nor Christine look at all like the couple in the
picture. They are William Thomas & Sophia
Penelope Horner, Earl & Countess of Ilchester. By coincidence, a
sister-in-law and a brother-in-law of my mother's each had
an ancestor in Ilchester, Somerset ~ so there is some connexion.
(1981, Victoria Art Gallery ~
after the
women's
and
men's sides combined,
and before they
adopted
a common costume)
I have created this web site as a history of
Hollytree's first ten years, including the period before it took its
present name.
I have copied in the following pages ~ in plain "sans-serif" typeface
~
the ten-year history
I wrote in 1984 at the invitation
of the American Morris Newsletter, who had embarked on a
project of
publishing histories from various Morris teams, starting with us.
I have also copied ~ again
in
plain
sans-serif typeface ~ the report I wrote in
1978 on our participation
in the folklore festival of St-Octave de l'Avenir in the
Gaspé.
Memory
can be fallible, and also different people pay attention to different
things. Records written within ten years,
however, are more credible than the memory after a lapse of
two or three decades. For example, when I came across my report on
St-Octave, I
had no recollection after all these years of some of the
information set down there in my own hand. (That's the point of writing
things down on pieces of paper.)
I
have added ~ in this "serif" typeface ~ other memories
and comments, and I
have included a selection of photos ~ which themselves have in their
turn aroused
memories.
Contributions of more photos and memories from
1974-1984 are welcome, and I will do my best to accommodate them.
Hollytree's
history after 1984 I leave to someone else to take on,
as my hands are full; although for that undertaking, I do have some
contributions available.
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