Our 60th anniversary weekend

OUR 60th ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND
We had a great weekend which started really well at The Britannia at Llanmadoc on Thursday evening, with really good food and sunshine. 

First, a bit of history. We started life in 1966 when the late Laurie Moseley talked local lads from the village into forming a dance side called The Mighty Men of Madoc, starting initially as a sword dance side, performing the Rapper Dance, a fast, energetic, exciting spectacle. The side went on to include Morris dancing as the Men of Sweyn’s Ey, until 2019 when we welcomed women to join the side which then became Sweyns Ey Morris. It was quite poignant for us that our founder Laurie’s daughter Claire came to watch us and reminisce about our formative days.
 
Friday was spent with people getting the Werganrows farm house ready to welcome our guests. The accommodation was really excellent and good for our needs, having large tables sufficiently big enough to allow the archives to be displayed, as well as the many cakes provided to be shown to good effect! Three barrels of Sweyn’s Ale and three polypins of Curly Boar cider provided an impressive array of beverages! Werganrows also had a hot tub, a sauna and a lake, so there really was nowhere better to host our weekend. The evening was spent welcoming new arrivals, eating food that team members provided or cooked, and inevitably a music session got underway with the arrival of Martin Hughes, who was joined by Kevin, Sian and Di who provided a lovely array of tunes.

Saturday saw us joined by Cardiff Morris, Full Moon Morris, Carreg Las, ISCA & White Hart Morris, as well as ex members of our side. Our two tour buses were a whole one hour late picking us up, but this actually worked to our advantage as our initial intention to dance at Oxford Street and Mumbles sea front was totally scuppered by heavy rain and it was clear that we would not be able to dance for a whole 2 hours at our intended dance venues.
 
The Swansea Tour comprising Carreg Las, ISCA, White Hart and Sweyn’s Ey Team 1, piled into the Cross Keys in Swansea who welcomed us in, served us coffee and ale and cheerfully invited us to dance in the back room, which we gratefully did for the next hour! We might think about doing an evening tour in the winter months at the Keys as it is a good place! Similarly, the White Rose in Mumbles responded positively to the coach-load taken there.

We next visited The Gower Inn where sunshine broke through the grey clouds scudding in from the west, allowing us to dance outside and also eat the good lunch provided to us. A couple of Loose Women from Lewes were holidaying in the area and joined up with an ISCA lady to do a threesome jig which looked good.
 
Things appeared to be improving weather wise when we danced at The Gower Heritage Centre, with Richie Saunders giving us complementary Curly Boar Cider which we helped create last September! The King Arthur was also danced at and is a place designed for Morris dancing. They were able to accommodate us despite having a large wedding party visiting them on the same day as our anniversary event.

Then the weather got a little wild! Driving out to the Worm’s Head Hotel showed a seascape affected by extremely high winds running at 30 knots plus! The magnificent Rhossili Bay was a boiling mass of waves and as soon as we left the bus, several hats went flying! It was clear to us that trying to dance in such conditions would be foolhardy, possibly dangerous, so we were left with no option but to cancel & have a drink in the Worm’s Head instead! Sad but totally the correct thing to do given the circumstances.

Saturday evening saw us back at our accommodation for Ben the Squire’s speech, enormous amounts of curry, ale & cider and playing of folk tunes, pop and disco music and Bob Dylan which went on to the dawning of the day, at 04:00am to be precise!

Sunday gave us a dry spell and the last dance session of our weekend at The Railway Inn which had brewed the remarkably good Sweyn’s Ale, and where there was one remaining barrel of the nine they brewed! The relaxed dancing done by Carreg Las, a side comprising Cardiff & Full Moon dancers and Sweyn’s Ey who managed to field two sets of dancers for most of the dances, brought a successful finale to a great weekend.

It is worth recording the people who attended our weekend who used to be members of Sweyn’s Ey Morris back in the day. Many thanks for coming to our weekend and for all you did in the past to make Sweyn’s Ey become the success it currently is!
Dancers: Keith Leech, Jim Birch, Dave Lock, Julian Lander, John Jeater, Andy Baker, Nigel Britton, & Yotin Wallace.
Musicians: Martin Hughes, Jane Ruel, & Ann Livesley

Current members of Sweyn’s Ey Morris who attended the weekend
Musicians: Sian Musgrave, Roger Bayliss,  & Kevin Howcroft                            
Louis Atkinson, Jonathan Baker, Alison Bayliss, Di Clark, Alistair Dixon, Alison Haworth, Nigel Haworth, Ben James, Keith Lascelles, Margaret Lee, Claire Musselwhite, Erin Rickard, Paul Tarrant, Geoff Wildman, Morwen Williams, & Stewart Wright.  
                             
We’re truly thankful to everyone who joined our weekend, all the venues who allowed us to perform and our sponsors, The Gower Society, The Morris Ring, the Swansea Brewing Company, and Shed Head Cider who all gave us fantastic support. 

The weekend did not happen by magic, however, and a small industrious group of people put a lot of hard work into the organisation of the Anniversary event. Alistair, Di, Erin, Geoff, Sian, and especially Nigel, should be thanked by everyone in the side for the great amount of effort they put in to making it a highly successful weekend!
Paul Tarrant
 

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Keith Lascelles provided the following write up of the Mumbles Tour
 
Sweyn’s Ey Morris 60th Anniversary tour Saturday June 6th 2026
This was one of two tours, one travelling to Swansea and this one travelling to Mumbles.
Sweyn’s Ey present                                       
Louis Atkinson                                        Kevin Howcroft   Musician
Alison Bayliss                                         Ben James
Roger Bayliss   Musician                        Keith Lascelles       
Alistair Dixon                                          Morwen Williams
Alison Haworth                                       Stewart Wright   light duties
Nigel Haworth                                                            
Also former SEM musician Martin Hughes, and later joined by former member Yotin Aster.
And members of Cardiff Morris and Full Moon Morris; some people were members of all three sides! Full Moon included former SEM musician Jane Ruel.
 
About 100 dancers, musicians and followers assembled in Blackhills Lane, Upper Killay at ~9.30am for the two coaches. Unfortunately, South Wales Transport had messed up the booking, and the coaches arrived an hour late, by which time it was raining quite heavily.
 
We were dropped in Mumbles. The rain meant that there was little choice but to retreat to the White Rose, who as usual had no real beer available. The toilets, coffee and tea were in great demand. With the presence of very few other customers, we were able to find space for each side to perform a couple of dances.
 
On to the lunch stop, the Gower Inn, for both coaches. We crowded in to the back room, which had room for about 50 people, and became jampacked when the other coachload arrived. Very fortunately, the Sun God shone upon us and it stopped raining, so we were able to retreat outside to the garden. There was some dancing, including a massed Vandalls of Hammerwich, where the massed musicians demonstrated how easy it is for massed musicians to get out of time with each other. Sweyn’s Ey performed the Curly Boar, with two sets. A surprise item was from Loose Women; two members on holiday plus a lady from Isca showed a dance. We were then issued with our paper bags of lunch.
 
Next to the King Arthur Hotel where it was fine but breezy, for more dancing. Bizarrely, there was a man wearing a red tutu who wished to join in. As he looked bright and camp, there was an obvious choice of dance. There was a wedding taking place at the hotel; the groom also volunteered to dance, the bride only to pose for photographs.
 
The final venue was the Worm’s Head Hotel at Rhossili for both coachloads. It was blowing a gale, so dancing was out of the question. Again, the room was jampacked, so several people opted for the teashop instead. We left earlier than originally planned, to return to our billet, WerganRose Farm.