The Kit

Black breeches, white socks and shirt form the basis of the kit, which will be topped off with either black and orange baldricks; an orange/black waistcoat or an orange/black tabard, with a beribboned straw hat and bells for the morris. We wear orange sashes when dancing the rapper sword dance. The front of the tabard (orange) depicts a miner's lamp (for the now gone local coal mining communities) and crossed swords. The back (black) features one sword, a top hat and our badge.The waistcoat back has the crossed sword and top hat emblem which formed part of the school badge where we originally met. The story behind the top hat and sword goes back to olden days when German swordmakers emigrated to Shotley Bridge near Consett, and during a drinking session in one of the local hostelries a bet ensued that they couldn't make a sword with a flexible blade. When they turned up on the appointed day dressed in fine cloaks and top hats they didn't have a sword with them. The local metalworkers reckoned to have won the bet until the swordmakers removed their hats and uncoiled the swords hidden inside.