In 1990 John Meredith and I recorded the Murray Brothers, Bert and Bob, at Burrell Creek NSW along with their sister, Kit Taylor. All were well known musicians in the area.
Early the next year (1991) Ollie and I along with our kids had an amazing musical session at Taree with them and local fiddle and concertina player, Ernie Wells. I videoed segments of this session and it is now in our NLA collection.
We also recorded Kit’s son Peter and his wife, Dorothy doing some local variations of dances.
The people we record are not just numbers on a Library catalogue, they often become friends and this was the case with Peter and Dorothy Taylor.
About five years ago Peter lamented that the old (unique) local dances were being forgotten and suggested that he gather a few of his dancing friends, teach them the dances and we could video them. Of course, the answer was YES. Covid and a few health issues intervened but Peter contacted me again earlier this year and the result was the dance we recorded at Mitchell’s Island Hall in August 2022.
You certainly don’t see a dance programme like this very often these days.
There’s always a story and this one is a bit long to tell here so the resulting video and complete story are up on our Verandah Music YouTube site, here
Many thanks to Peter and Dorothy for facilitating the dance, Ollie Willis and John and Maree Harpley for helping us record it for posterity.
Rob Willis
