Guest Blogger: Christopher Harris of the Devil’s Dyke Morris Men

The Devil’s Dyke Morris Men have a long history of supporting and making donations to both national and local charities. In recent years the Men have particularly chosen to work with charities whose major focus is on those with physical or mental disabilities. Sadly over the years the Side has lost a number of members to unexpected and untimely death.

These losses have made us all the more aware that our joy in dancing derives from our ability to use our skills and our physical strength. This is underlined by the experience of one of our regular dancing evenings when each year we are visited by a group of young people with a range of learning difficulties and disabilities. The evident joy which these young people find from watching and occasionally joining in with us in a dance strengthens our awareness of our own joy.

The dancing season begins traditionally with May Morning when we are joined by a large audience to await the sunrise over the Gog & Magog Hills south of Cambridge. Before that we regularly appear at the Thriplow Daffodil event in the Spring, and from May onwards we dance at a range of events and outside our favourite public houses to bring, we hope, joy and entertainment with our dancing.

On all of these occasions we seek to draw upon the generosity of our audience in return for our dancing: this is the money we collect over the year for our chosen charity. This year we have Headway Cambridgeshire as our charity, whose work we know to be so valuable in helping people with brain injury. We are delighted to be able to assist a little in this work.

The Devil’s Dyke Morris Men danced at The Crown in Ashley at Thursday 5 July 2012. They presented Headway Cambridgeshire with a cheque for £1,000 which they had raised in collections at their dances over the year.