October 1967. I remember it well. I’d landed up in Southampton about to begin a three year BSc course in botany and geography. I’d gained a place in one of the halls of residence, South Stoneham House, and life was hunky-dory.
I think we arrived in Southampton on the Wednesday evening. On the following Saturday, the Students’ Union had organised its annual ‘Bun Fight’, when all the student societies put all their wares on display and try and persuade as many freshmen to join as possible. Like many others, I went along to see what was on offer.
I loitered a little longer in front of the booth of the English & Scottish Folk Dance Society, and before I had chance to ‘escape’ some of the folks there had engaged me in conversation and persuaded me to come along to their next evening.
While I had long had an interest in folk music, I’d never done any folk dancing whatsoever, although I had a passing interest. Whenever there was something on the TV about folk dance I always watched. But that was it.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I did go along the next week to my first folk dance club session – and I was hooked. And I also met a girl, Liz Holgreaves (seen in several of the photos below) who became my best friend during the first year at university [1].
It took some time to master much of the stepping for both English and Scottish country dances, but I found I was more or less ‘a natural’, with a good sense of rhythm. And for the next three years, I thoroughly enjoyed all the dancing I took part in. At the beginning of my second year in 1968 I helped found the Red Stags Morris Men, and that was my introduction to Morris dancing for more than a decade, and it really only lapsed while I was away in Latin America during the 1970s, and since 1991 when I moved to the Philippines.
I really like Scottish dancing. Mix with a great set of dancers, and dance to a band that can really make the floor bounce, and there’s nothing better.
During my Southampton days, we attended three Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festivals, at the University of Hull (in February 1968), Strathclyde University (a year later), and the University of Reading in 1970. At Hull and Strathclyde I was a member of the Scottish dance demonstration team, the first occasion only four months or so after I first began dancing.
I don’t remember the names of two of the girls here at the Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival at the University of Hull in 1968. Standing, L to R: Edward Johns, me, John Chubb. Sitting, L to R: Elizabeth Holgreaves, ??, Pauline ??
The following year we were at Strathclyde University in Glasgow. Fortunately the Students’ Union subsidised our air fares to Glasgow from London Heathrow. We flew on a BEA Comet! We got through, but many of the university representatives from south of the Border were caught up in the bad weather when snow blocked many of the main routes from England to Scotland, and they eventually turned up almost 24 hours late. The evening ceilidh was wonderful.
By the 1970 festival at Reading, I had already help found the Morris side, and that year I participated only in Morris dancing. After Southampton, I moved to Birmingham to begin graduate studies, and joined the Green Man’s Morris & Sword Club, eventually becoming Squire in 1982.
By the end of the 1980s I’d given up dancing, having developed arthritis in my knees and hips. It was just too uncomfortable to carry on dancing even though my arthritis never became debilitating. I’d love to dance again, but given my current condition, it’s more than I can manage to make a two mile walk, never mind dance. Having both feet off the ground at the same time is something that my left leg and ankle would not tolerate.
[1] An update on 17 October 2025
A few days ago, I received the sad news (from Liz Holgreaves husband John Harvey) that Liz had passed away on 30 August. She was 76. This photo was taken in 2006 at her elder son’s wedding.
During our first year at the University of Southampton (1967-68), Liz and I were best friends, and we dated for several months. She was studying English and History and I was studying Botany and Geography. Such disparate academic interests, yet we were brought together through our love of folk dancing.
When I met her for the first time, at the first meeting of the English and Scottish Folk Dance Society, I thought that I had never met a lovelier person. And, much to my delight (and perhaps even astonishment), she agreed to meet me later on in the week for a coffee.
As the weeks progressed, we went out together more and more, and by the middle of the Spring Term, our relationship had begun to blossom. During the summer vacation, I spent several weeks at her home in Church Fenton near York, and we went youth hostelling over the North York Moors. This is an area my wife Steph and I have come to enjoy since we moved to the northeast in 2020. Liz visited my family home in Leek in North Staffordshire and I was delighted to show her the beautiful Staffordshire Moorlands and the dales of Derbyshire where I grew up. She even joined my family at the wedding of my elder brother Ed and Christine in Brighton. On that evening Liz and I enjoyed a theatre show of The White Heather Club seeing many of the singers and dancers who regularly appeared on the BBC program of that same name, such as folk legends Robin Hall and Jimmy Macgregor.
Sadly, our relationship did not endure, although Liz and I remained good friends and always enjoyed dancing together. She was one of the most graceful dancers I have ever partnered.
I lost touch with Liz after I left Southampton. She and John were married in 1971. And I met Steph in 1972 at the University of Birmingham where we were graduate students.
However, moving on almost 30 years (I was working in the Philippines at the time) I came across the name of someone online who I thought might be related to Liz, and so I wrote to them. You can imagine my surprise when a long letter from Liz landed on my desk a couple of months later. Catching up on so many intervening years, we agreed to meet whenever I was next in the UK on home leave, sharing so many memories and finding out about each other’s families. She had three children: Jamie, Joseph, and Sarah. Steph and I have two daughters, Hannah and Philippa, who are much the same age as Liz and John’s.
Early in the 2000s, Liz wrote me that the pain she was suffering had been finally diagnosed as secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, and it was this condition (and others) that led to her going into care around five years ago. And despite her deteriorating health, she remained happy and always confident in the deep and enduring love of John and her children.
Liz passed away peacefully with John holding her hand, while he and Joe read to her from one of her favourite books, as they listened to her favourite music, the second movement of Mozart’s 21st piano concerto.
I was privileged to attend her funeral online last Tuesday. It was a moving ceremony, full of love and admiration for a beautiful and gentle woman. Many tears were shed.
And although I met Liz only once since we left Southampton in 1970, her passing has raised so many good memories of those times. And for that I will be forever grateful, and she continues to have a place in my heart.
My deep and sincere condolences to John, Jamie, Joe, and Sarah, and their families. Liz will be sorely missed.
A balanced diet . . . 