Hong Kong Morris - Early History

Early History

The Hong Kong Morris was founded by Jim Carter in 1974. Many of its early members were officers of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. One founding member, Tony Reynolds, was a Quaker who had driven ambulances along the Burma Road during the Second World War. The side met to practice on Wednesday evenings at St John’s Cathedral in Garden Road, Hong Kong Island, and practices were followed by drinking and singing sessions in the eleventh-floor bar of The Hermitage, a block of government service flats in Kennedy Road that was redeveloped in the late 1990s. In the 1980s the side attracted a large number of British expatriates working in Hong Kong, teachers and engineers being particularly well represented. The side’s numbers reached a peak in the mid-1980s, at around 50 dancers and musicians.

Due to the increase in the team's numbers the practice venue was moved in the early 1980s to South Island School. The Hermitage remained the side's default watering hole, though by the late 1980s a number of hardy spirits tended to continue the festivities into the early hours of the morning at the Godown in Wanchai. In 1985 the side was featured in the Morris Ring publication The Morris Tradition, as a notable example of the spread of morris dancing beyond its traditional home in England. During the mid-1980s one member's government quarter in Gort Block, Victoria Barracks, a location conveniently close to The Hermitage, became a venue for a final glass or two of port to round off the evening. This agreeable custom came to an end when Victoria Barracks was converted into Hong Kong Park. 'Port Block', as it had by then been christened, was demolished along with most of the other government quarters in the Barracks.