Children should be Seen AND Heard
One of the first people to get in touch after the opening of the Cafe was John Shewmaker, of Columbia, Missouri. John drew my attention to an area I had forgotten, perhaps because on this (Eastern) side of the Atlantic, we know as little about childrens' groups as (he says) Americans know about theirs.
Since your Cafe is aimed at Hobby Animals and other sorts of Fooling, and your hobby festival at Banbury incorporated children and their talents - a wonderful idea - would I be out of line in enquiring whether you might make a little space in your cafe for children's teams, school teams, and the like?
Perhaps a Children's Menu?
(Not just chicken fingers and hamburgers, which are the standard children's menu fare in the U.S. at fast food restaurants. I should perhaps add, that a chicken finger is not a buffalo wing.)
Curiously, while most of the children's teams in the United States that I am aware of seem to be in New England, and are apt to be seen annually at the New England Folk Festival (third weekend of April, in Natick, Massachusetts, at the High School, if you can find it - the natives are not much help), there are some teams scattered about elsewhere, almost at random.
There are two or three school teams in suburban St. Louis County, Missouri, a community team in Baldwin City, Kansas (this is close to the exact Middle of Nowhere), and one in Montague, Michigan, which is a small blip on anyone's map. None of these teams travel much, ordinarily, and they do not communicate with the rest of the Morris world, and few in the adult morris community know or care that they exist. One who does is Dr. John Ramsey, retired from Berea College, Kentucky, where for about twenty-five years he ran the Berea Christmas Country Dance School. John is friends of both the Baldwin, Kansas people, and the Montague music teacher, Carol Urquart. John encouraged both groups to make a pilgrimage to England and Denmark, some years back, and each did so, in turn (not together).
It should not be forgotten that the Morris Books were originally pamphlets for school use: Cecil Sharp thought the tradition would utterly die unless it found a home in the schools. Perhaps he had other motives, too, in seeking to get Morris into the schools, but surely that was sufficient.
There was an annual festival, RiverFaces, in St. Louis, Missouri, which hung around for a while - it may still be going for aught I know - which involved school children and the making of masks, which would be worn and paraded about during the festival. As a festival, this was an invention with no previous connection to anything. The River was simply a fortuitous conceit, allowing for the creation of aquatic creatures, and the use of a park near the Mississippi for the Festival. The idea of a Banbury Hobby Festival is simply right on, building on an already extant tradition.
John's right, of course - we should be aware of what youngsters are doing in and around the Morris, and I'll be happy to give space to any material anyone cares to send in. It would be particularly nice to hear from young performers themselves.