Henry “Harry” Taylor was 68 in 1910. He had led the Longborough morris. The last time that Taylor danced with a side was at the Jubilee of 1887. Cecil Sharp noted his dances with the tunes, which Taylor sang to him; he is said to have never learnt an instrument, though Kenworthy Schofield implies that he was a fiddler. Clive Carey also noted some of his tunes.
The first time C. Sharp met Taylor, on 2 May 1910, the latter had gone to Condicote, just over the hill from Longborough, for a “haystack thatching job”. There under the shelter of a haystack, using wisps of hay in lieu of the orthodox handkerchiefs, Mr Sharp and “Old Harry”, as he was called, danced a “Pas de Deux”, the ancient one whistling the tunes, of which, along with the steps, notes were taken and afterwards pieced together. The first dance gone through was Constant Billy, because of its possible relationship to the Campden dance, then Country Gardens (to the tune usually called Highland Mary), Taylor’s favourite tune for the sidestep dance, and onto Hey Diddle Dis, the processional.