Cry Havoc: A History

Who are we?

We are a mixed morris side from Botley in Oxford, performing mainly Cotswold dances. We dance for fun, but we also raise money for charity, a new one being nominated each year.

Past and Present

Cry Havoc was founded in 1993 after someone had the bright idea of including a bit of morris dancing in a pantomime. Sufficient interest was generated in the Botley area for Paul Ferret, formerly of Towersey Morris, to set about teaching the side on a regular basis. The side has grown to around twenty-five members, including up to five musicians (plus unspecified percussionists). There is still a strong representation from Botley, but a number of members come from further afield.

The side’s name comes from Paul’s buzzard, Havoc, immortalized in the emblem we wear on our waistcoats. Paul has moved on to pastures new in Hay on Wye, but we continue to refine the dances he taught us, and we’ve even learned a few more too. Our repertoire now includes dances from Bampton, Adderbury, Bledington, Fieldtown, Headington, Ilmington, and Lichfield (and even a border dance from White Ladies Aston, which we learned in Suffolk, of all places). The side has also started to include a more theatrical element – though some might say an element of pantomime has always been present. Sightings of Dorris Morris and the Buzzard (a costume consisting of hundreds of pheasant feathers) have become more frequent of late.

Before he left us, Paul invented a dance he called ‘Dogs of War’ (as in ‘Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!’), an energetic piece which is the first in what we hope will become a Botley tradition. The end of the dance is pictured here, danced in ‘alternative’ kit at Warwick festival, 1996. We now also have our own processional dance, invented by former squire Mark Roberts and foreman John Brett, first seen at our annual leading of the Levellers’ Day parade in Burford, 1999. We also have another Botley dance, invented by another former squire, Jackie Pritchard, which is called ‘Mountain Goats’ and is specifically designed to be danced on a slope (something we seem to have to do rather too often for our liking).

As well as dancing at Levellers’ Day and Warwick, we have taken part in the Kirtlington Lamb Ale on several occasions, have appeared at Standlake, Nantwich, Oxford, and Wallingford festivals, done the interval spot at the Haddenham ceilidh on three occasions, and even guest starred on the Lee and Herring show on BBC2 (three hours on a very cold February morning for a five-second background shot).

We also enjoy a mutually agreeable relationship with Dave and Helen Maggs of the West Berkshire Brewery, as this picture of us outside the Bell at Aldworth attests.

Kit Purple and black baldricks, black waistcoats with a white buzzard emblem, white shirts, white trousers. Underwear, if worn on the inside, preferably white; if worn on the outside, any colour so long as it’s purple.

Contact

Geoff Woods
geoffrey.woods1@btinternet.com