Honorary Members

We have had very few honorary members over the years, we are very proud of the few we have honoured in this way.

Peter de Courcy

As a side, we have granted Peter De Courcy honorary membership of YMM, acknowledging our long, warm friendship with him and his wider service to the morris world.

Peter has been a good friend to the side and has joined us in Kennet Morris Men kit frequently & successfully at lots of events, particularly Oxford and Boxing Day, adding to the performance. He is also a local Yateley lad, joining us at the Dog & Partridge on winter Tuesdays where he fits in really well!

He has also been a real workhorse in the The Morris Ring, looking after our interests and doing a good job with the website and all sorts of other comms / background jobs – A real servant of the Morris.

Morris Sunderland

Morris was the Squire of the Ring when we joined in the 1970s and was very supportive and helpful.

I remember when his wife was guest of Honour at YMM 25yrs (I think) anniversary dinner. Morris had previously died.

She was giving out Rosemary cuttings from Morris’s own bush, as it was his custom to always have a sprig in his lapel or hat. She did ask all recipients to plant them as they will grow, prolifically, in his memory.

I was taking pics and later said to her that I’d missed out….she produced ten cuttings from her bag and gave them to me. I must have upset Morris as he looked down from above, as they all died, despite my greatest care. I wonder if anybody has a cutting from that day that flourished….I’d love another try! Mike Musgrove

Father Kenneth Loveless

Also a Squire of the Ring

Some personal reflections and his obituary follow.

I think I have already mentioned that the Boys side performed for Rev Ken at his home in Clothworkers Cottages in Islington on the day that I gave my presentation at Cecil Sharpe House & that the Mummers also performed our play for him at that venue on the night we performed at the Barbican. Dave Bates & Caroline, his girlfriend at that time, met us in London & I remember him offering her a seat in his lounge by patting a place on his sofa – when the plume of dust had settled, she gracefully accepted! Afterwards he
offered drinks all round, rum was served in generous portions either in our
tankards or half pint tumblers!

It was either for one of our DoD’s or the Ring Meeting that I offered to
host him for the weekend when I was living in Cranford Park Avenue in
Yateley. This involved driving him down from Islington & ensuring that I had
2 pints of best Jersey cream milk available in house for him which I guess
was his cure for a hangover each morning. On establishing him in residence
upstairs in the spare bed room on the Friday night there was an almighty
crash from that room & my first thought, as I dashed upstairs, was that he
had collapsed on the floor, that fear was not alleviated by the fact that he
lay on the floor the other side of the door making it’s opening doubly
difficult. Indeed he had fallen over but fortunately not in his last death
throws.

He was keen on a drink & one morris side tells of a visit to Broadstairs
Folk Festival when they had to carry him back to his hotel collapsed
paralytic on flat packed deck chair. When they were accosted by a local PC
enquiring who he was, they said he was the Rural Dean of Hackney. ‘Best
carry on then’ was the PC’s reply!

At our Ring Meeting he gave the address in the church service in St Peter’s
on the Sunday morning. He always said it was his honour and duty to bring
God into our lives on these occasions. He also mentioned the fact that that
some churches advertised the name of the preacher each week. He did not
agree with this practice ‘You come to church for God not for the preacher.
You could have the silliest nincompoop as the preacher(& some of you may
think you have today. . . Hmmmm?)  but you don’t come to church for the
preacher, you come for God… . Hmmmmm?’

You may also remember that YMM danced into the Ring Meeting at Thaxted in
1977(?) in the church on Sunday morning. On a later occasion Father Ken was
also giving the address from the pulpit in Exeter cathedral during their
Ring Meeting & apparently the powers to be there had specifically requested
that there be no dancing in the church on the Sunday morning. Father Ken,
not adverse to a bit of controversy, referred to it by saying during his
sermon that if it was good enough for Spanish altar boys to dance on the
altar at the Holy Roman Cathedral in St St Sebastian,  then a morris dance
in Exeter cathedral should also be allowed . . .  .Hmmm?

Many stories which it has been a pleasure to recollect but one of my
proudest moments with YMM was to dance the Princess Royal (Fieldtown) jig to
the playing of Father Ken on William Kimber’s concertina. Can’t remember if
it was at an Ale or at the Ring meeting but it was definitely in the Drama
Studio at Yateley Comprehensive School.

Thanks for the opportunity to reminisce,

Paul Montague

Having read the bit on father KEN…….I am pretty sure that it was YMM that gave the placard..,,”God is watching”….Keith Barker or Paul or Rod will know more than I remember about it.

Ref Father Ken’s grace and Favour cottage in Islington…….one year we all travelled to it wearing our mummers kit…yes…including on the Tube. We performed in the courtyard and then sqeeeeezed into the cramped front room………….my goodness…there were tables everywhere and each loaded with exotic knick knacks from his lifetime of travels. Each of us turned carefully and picked our way about for fear of knocking something over. The walls had shelves full of stuff and pictures hung everwhere.

The real jaw dropper……we looked at his very steep stair case and each stair was stacked with books from the step to the ceiling…there must have been at least a thousand books.

Mike Musgrove

OBITUARY : The Rev Kenneth Loveless

Tuesday 23 May 1995

Kenneth Loveless was born of a generation that expected many of its clergy to be eccentric. He lived up to that expectation with flair. Looking through his wardrobe gave a hint of the kaleidoscopic life of this colourful man. So many different uniforms and costumes (all with accompanying headgear): his Morris Men’s outfit, his naval uniform, a three-cornered hat, priestly cassock and vestments; and his scouting uniforms. Each had a story to tell.

Studies finished, Loveless joined the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of lieutenant- commander. When, for a second time he found himself floating in the cold sea after being torpedoed, he made a vow that if he was saved he would serve the people of east London as a priest, which he did for 45 years. Two curacies prepared him for the task of becoming vicar, in 1954, of the war-ravaged Anglo Catholic Shrine of Holy Trinity, Hoxton. He took no heed of the warning that he would not be able to “run his parish like he ran his ship”. He made up for his smallness of stature by a largeness of personality which he used to the full.

Loveless could make people work for him. Many curates became entranced by his spell, as did a grateful set of parishioners who found his sparkle so refreshing. Scouting and guiding flourished in the parish – despite the fact that he could not put up a tent himself. His liturgical flair was right on target: a plaque in his house reads, “God is watching so give Him a good show.” He was offered the Bishopric of Nassau and the Bahamas but feared the way of life might be too tempting to a man who loved a drink.

He loved possessions: he had a prodigious collection of records (over 10,000); his walls were covered with coffin handles – death, funerals and cemeteries were all fascinating to him. He had such a collection of books that the gas cooker was used to store the overflow. Loveless never made a hot meal at home and boasted that he had never served a cup of coffee or tea to any of his many guests.

In the early years, Loveless became involved with the English music and dancing tradition. He was a member of 58 Morris sides and finally Squire of the Ring in 1980. He was appointed MBE for services to Morris dancing in 1990.

Loveless was much in demand as a concertina player. He had also been an inspiration for the “voice of God” in Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, and his voice was still hail and hearty when he sang his last hymn in church: a favourite, Sydney Carter’s “The Lord of the Dance”.

After doing a very effective job as Area Dean of Hackney, he retired in 1976 to a little cottage in Islington. The handsome figure of early years became a mellow, bearded and ruddy-faced old man. He smoked his pipes with relish, his cigars with a flair and took his snuff with a superior snort.

Latterly, Loveless looked out with a sad eye on the church he had tried to serve so faithfully and at an England to which he had given so much. He was particularly upset and angry with the proposed closure of Bart’s Hospital, London, where he had been brought back from death’s door.

Kenneth Loveless had wanted to be buried off the Nab Tower at Portsmouth, in English water and by Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. In fact, with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing’s export licence in hand, in international water and in the tugmaster’s boat from Newhaven, he returned to the sea that he twice cheated. He knew England wasn’t what it was, so he will understand.

Stuart Wilson

Kenneth Norman Joseph Loveless, priest, dancer: born 1 August 1911; deacon 1949, priest 1950; vicar, Holy Trinity with St Mary 1954-68; Area Dean of Hackney 1968-76; MBE 1990; died 19 March 1995.