On Feb. 10th the Hobby Horse (featured in the Feb-April Mardles ) was invited to Cecil Sharp House to join in EFDSS’s 75th anniversary celebrations of the merging of the dance and song societies to form the EFDSS

This year is also the 80th anniversary of the very first folk dance festival to be held in the Royal Albert Hall this event was therefore called The Return of Albert
Four members of Hoxon Hundred Morris accompanied the horse to Camden.

The morning was spent looking at archive material and EFDSS magazines of various events stretching way back in time.
In the afternoon there was a tea dance with displays from various teams that have been associated with the Albert Hall events over the years. The Humberside Egg Dance was very interesting being performed by two blindfolded dancers who had to dance along two rows of eggs (probably hard boiled, the eggs that is) without treading on them let alone bumping into each other. It was very skilfully performed.

The horse, ably ridden by John Grayling and allowed to roam at will during appropriate morris displays,was much admired. Unfortunately it’s maker Peter Spenceley was not well enough to attend the occasion.

The celebrations continued into the evening but the horse was tired and was returned to its new Suffolk stable.

Hoxon will let the horse loose at various events during the summer so beware and be ready to feed it with money.

Peter Spenceley’s fine basket-work Hobby Horse, featured on the front cover and in Tim Power’s feature in the November 2006 issue of Mardles, has found a new Stable.

On Boxing Day 2006, at the Dolphin Inn in Wortham, Tim handed over the reins of the Hobby Horse to Ron Ross, Squire of Hoxon Hundred. After more than twenty-five years of confinement in Hamish & Lila Fraser’s attic in Waldringfield, during which period the Horse came out only once a year for the anniversaries of Douglas Kennedy’s birthday, the Hobby Horse will now be able to ‘gallop out’ on Wednesday evenings with Hoxon and also trot along to a few of the Summer festivals and ‘Hoxon Holidays’.

Tim Power(right) hands over the reins to Ron Ross

Hoxon Hundred are based in the Suffolk village of Hoxne and have been performing Cotswold and Border Morris dances for over twenty years along with North-West Processional and Garland dances, Rapper Sword and Clog step-dances. All of these traditions were displayed at the Dolphin, and, respecting the time of year, Hoxon also sang Carols and performed a Mummer’s play. Then followed a music & song session (including Mardles’ rambling session reporter, Dave Cooper) with sandwiches and mince pies, good beer and a proper pub fire. Well done Hoxon and the Dolphin!

Peter Spenceley wrote to Mardles – see the letters page – to say that the first outing of Hoxne Hundred & the Hobby Horse would be at the Dolphin.

The Hobby Horse was with he ‘Whirligigs’, a London dance group led by Marjorie Fennessy, on their visit to Angers in central France. "This was in 1955", said Mike Isaacs, a past member of the group who provided the photo of the Whirligigs with the Hobby Horse in Angers. However for many years the Horse lay in the attic at Cecil Sharp House until found and refurbished by the Fraser's in 1980. Its current revival came about because Heather Bexon wanted to borrow a hobby horse for a ‘folk day’ at Hillcroft school, and heard about the Horse at one of the Fraser’s events from Tim Power, who also lives in Waldringfield. After the folk day, Hamish & Lila decided to pass the Horse to a group who would make more use of it, and Mike Bexon suggested Hoxon Hundred, being a well-established side performing a good variety of dance traditions. And so it came to pass!

Thanks to Mardles, the Horse has once again come to the notice of the EFDSS. Hilary Blanford – wife of the original ‘Mr Mardles’ invited the Horse back to Cecil sharp House in February 2007 to attend The Return of Albert, a re-creation of the London Folk festivals at the Royal Albert Hall in the 1960s and ‘70s. This may well be the first of many such outings, because the (now) Hoxon Hobby .......