The Abingdon Morris Tradition was thrown into some disarray in the late 1970’s by a breakaway movement which nowadays dances under the name Mr Hemmings Morris Dancers. The causes of the dispute which led to the breakaway are many, and are still recalled with rancour by many of those involved. The sad fact remains that participants in the dispute, many of whom are senior members of the Hemmings family, still dance with the two Abingdon sides and show no signs of wanting a reconciliation. So Abingdon has two Morris sides – the original Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers, which still dances to the Horns won from the Vineyard men in 1700 and for whom the annually elected Mayor of Ock Street acts as squire, and the breakaway movement, Mr Hemmings Morris Dancers, who, although springing from the same roots as Abingdon Trational Morris Dancers (ATMD), ceded the rights to the original horns and involvement in the tradition of electing the Mayor of Ock Street when they broke away. The Mr Hemmings side has stayed with the dance repertoire as it was at the time of the breakaway in 1978. The Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers side preserve the original traditions in full and have added three dances to the 1978 repertoire. The first two were Buttercup Joe (2000) and Queen Mary’s Favour (2006). Leslie Argyle, Mayor of Ock Street for many years was instrumental in both of these. The Queen Mary’s Favour dance, performed by Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers during the visit of the Princess Royal to Abingdon in 2006, celebrates the 450th anniversary of the granting of the Charter to the Borough of Abingdon in 1556 by Queen Mary. Following the dissolution of Abingdon Abbey by Henry VIII (her father) the town became lawless and fell into criminality and vice, which the charter is said to have solved! Fittingly, the third new dance was a revival of a long lost dance, called How d'ye do Sir, and the reveived dance was first performed on Les's 80th Birthday.
