Advertisement detailing celebrations in the Village for the 70th Jubilee of the Queen. June 2nd - June 5th. Included the Shirt Race and Morris Dancing which usually took place on May Bank Holiday weekend. Organised by Parish Council
Newspaper cutting reporting on Tramps' Supper put on by Pumpkin Club to raise funds for the elderly residents on Bampton. Held in the Cotswold Grill and the Food donated by Dave Passmore the proprietor. Prizes were given to the best dressed Tramps. The Weekend activities included Judging of Whitsun Garlands made by Children, prizes went to Andrew and Mark Whitlock, George and Amanda Gascoigne and Floyd and Christine Curtis. Morris Dancing and an Art Exhibition were also held. The cuttings are from the Standard, Times, & Echo dated Friday 1st June 1973. “Holiday festivities in Bampton”, “Bampton shirt race comes of age” and “Bampton Annual Fête”
Newspaper Cutting reporting on the Annual Fete held in the Old School Playing Field (Sandfords Field) Bampton in 1973. There was a knock out Competition, and displays by the Fire Brigade and the Morris Dancers. The Competition was won by the Jubilee Team who apparently had to wade through the muddy stream.
Photograph of Francis Shergold's Morris side in 1964 with the names of some of the team Francis and Roy Shergold Alec Wixey Jim Buckingham Pete Allum Arthur Hayes
Sam Bennett born (1865-1951) from Ilmington, a frequent dancer and musician in Bampton, this photo dated 1920 Sam had the distinction of being called “a rotter” by Cecil Sharp. He was responsible for reviving the Morris tradition in the Warwickshire village of Ilmington. Although a fiddle player himself, he learned the tunes from a local pipe and tabor player, Tom Foster, who “no longer had enough teeth to hold the pipe in place” In the process of reviving the dances, Bennett did some improving and inventing along the way. To Sharp, this was inexcusable meddling; what he most treasured about traditional dance was that is was supposedly not the work of individual creativity, but of centuries of continuous evolution by the common, preferably uneducated people. Bennett was recorded in 1933 by a Harvard academic, James Madison Carpenter. Being a self-taught fiddler, and having learned his tunes directly from a piper, it is little wonder that his playing, though very rhythmic, was plain and unadorned except with frequent open-string drones.
Black and white photo of Morris dancers taken on 6th June 1927 left to right Tanner snr. Billy Flux, E Lay, Hudson. Bertie Hunt, Freddie Tanner, (written on back)