Mainly Morris Dancing History

Chris Molan, Bristol Folk News, Spring 1974, No 14 Mainly Morris Dancing was started in 1994/5 on a Linux server sited in the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol. At the time there were very few Web sites around, and on mentioning that one was interested in 'The Web', people looked at you and wondered if you were related to Charlotte!
You can see early versions of MMD (from Nov 1996) via the WayBack Machine, the Internet Archive. Do a search for http://emrs.chm.bris.ac.uk, then select Nov 23rd 1996 then choose the section on Folklore. You will find a list of 64 UK Morris sides who had Web sites at the time. A lot of the Wayback links are live so you can explore what was around on the Web at that time: look at Gnashers Morris Pages by Chris Clarke; EFDSS did not have a site, but there is information about the VWML via CECTAL; see Neil Wayne's article on the Wheatstone English Concertina.
I have Dr Neil Davies to thank for helping me through the intricacies of Slackware Linux. The background picture on the emrs site shows Joanna sitting on the headland rocks at the entrance to Boscastle

emrs.chm.bris.ac.uk is long gone, although I still find people with links to it; the site was moved from the University Web when I started an Argonet account. Whilst I was still working at the University, all I could do was to try to keep the links uptodate. When I retired in 2003 I started to rewrite the site, to put some order into the jumble of links, and, whilst preserving the main purpose of the site as a Morris Link Site, expand its use a little. With the demise of Shave The Donkey, and the obvious difficulties that Josie Morris and Joe Public have in tracking down Morris information of all sorts, MMD is probably in a better place to provide Morris information that many other more recent sites. I can also provide a more human touch, by offering direct assistance, so if you have a question, why not contact Doris Mancing - a lady with excellent Morris connections who was introduced to me many years ago by the inimitable Horse creator, Adrian.