EDITOR - Thank you for the coverage of the Morris dancers' sad decision to withdraw from the August bank holiday festival in Alford this year.
The event is planned straight after the last one. Armed with a cast-iron assurance we would have exclusive use of the cricket club facilities, invitations were sent out in the new year offering three social nights in the clubhouse.
Many sides agre
ed to come, so, when the cricket club found itself unable to run its fundraiser on any other weekend, and unilaterally withdrew from our agreement without notice or discussion, the side held a meeting, just two days after two of our members gave up a day's holiday to man a stand at the Alford Day.
The side unanimously agreed that there was no way we could realistically relocate at that late stage, and no way for our guests to arrive back after a display dancing tour of Lincolnshire and share accommodation with the cricket club and the general public.
No-one will miss the weekend event more than Alford Morris, and none more keenly than me.
I look back with great fondness on the big, enthusiastic crowds.
After years of battling successfully with the football club facilities, market stalls, withdrawal of police support for the procession, complaints from local traders, parked cars and unchecked yobbism among youths, losing our campsite was the final straw, and we will not give our guests a second-rate weekend.
Patrick Purves
Bagman
Alford Morris dancers
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