The only thing that stopped him was the Bristol Horse. many Morris sides are accompanied by an animal character when they are out dancing. The origins and significance of this are about as confused as the dance itself, so I won't bother to elaborate. Thank goodness for that, I hear you cry. All you need to know is that these animal characters are generally made up of a papier-maché or fabric head (horse, deer, Dragon, etc) and a shroud-like cloak which conceals the man inside.
All these loopy animals seem to do is to run around attempting to scare children and snapping their hinged lower jaws at everything and anything, especially dogs who mistake them for trees. Some of them even eat money, but I suppose everyone has some sort of problem.
The Bristol Horse, however, was in a class of his own. he was streets ahead of his nearest rival, the only really life-like 'animal' I have ever seen and obviously an embodiment of the character of his creator.
This beast's huge head had a genuine equine appearance and was, in fact, covered in a skin of brown suede, but strips of it appeared to be hanging off here and there, which gave it the rather gruesome impression of having fallen victim to some mad muleskinner who had left the job half way.
The eyes enhanced this semi-skinned appearance by being made of ping pong balls supported on springs which left them somewhat proud of the eye sockets. This absence of a firm location in the sockets enabled these manically expressive orbs to dip and bob about quite alarmingly whenever the head moved.
There was such animation in this creature that half the time it seemed to be talking to itself, or at least smiling sardonically whilst its ever-mobile eyes took in the world around it.
The cloak concealing the man within took on the appearance of a real body just by virtue of being attached to this amazing head, and the feetprotruding below the cloak belonged very obviously to this beast and not to some human hiding inside.
That Saturday morning on the Isle of Wight the musical procession prompted by John Willy was making its way to the muster point when it was halted by him in an underpass below a dual carriageway in order to take advantage of the superb acoustics.
Thirty or forty musicians must have been there, bouncing the sound around the concrete walls. Willy was in their midst, stomping from foot to foot, with notes spilling out of his melodeon. All those watching as well as playing were completely absorbed in this impromptu piece of jamming.
One by one, however, the attention of the watchers was drawn elsewhere, and this distraction ran through the gathering like a wave, reaching the musicians in a matter of seconds. They themsleves stopped playing one by one, and turned their gaze in the direction indicated by the dozens of faces around them.
In the ensuing silence everybody now homed in on the figure up on the embankment.
It was the Bristol Horse.
He was all alone, having obviously ascended the embankment while the rest of the
gathering was concentrating on the music, and here he was, having a pee.Realisation that he was being observed dawned at about the same time that the last musician stopped playing, and he slowly turned round to see two hundred grinning faces. His bulging ping pong eyes darted about as he surveyed the scene. He said nothing, but you could practically see the speech bubble above his head."