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Sloe, The

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Source: Copy of C. Sharp ms no. 2231 in Vaughan Williams Memorial Library
Performer: Mason, John
Place Collected: Stow-on-the-Wold
Date collected: 1909 (2 Aug)
Collector: Sharp, Cecil

CJ Sharp met 72-year old John Mason in Stow-on-the-Wold Workhouse. Mason had played fiddle for the Sherborne Morris set (and possibly others) and, as well as providing Sharp with a number of tunes, he volunteered the address of William Hathaway in Cheltenham, the location of Sherborne Morris’s George Simpson near Didcot and gave other leads towards participants in the Longborough, Bledington and Oddington morris sets. Many of the tunes which Mason described as “Morris Dance” are not generally known as such. Mason came from Icomb and as well as fiddle played clarinet, flute and concertina. He was visited by Mary Neal and Clive Carey shortly before he died and they noted several of the tunes he had previously played for Sharp.

The Sloe See similar tune, called The Slave in the Greet ms. A theatrical morris dance was performed at the Cheltenham Theatre in the 1820’s as part of a play called the Slave. This was a nut dance similar to that performed at Bacup, and the original performers were so enthusiastic as to give rise to the well known saying “to be nuts about something”. Was this the tune they used?