The Cloggies
Encyclopedia
Bill Tidy
William Edward "Bill" Tidy, MBE , is a British cartoonist, writer and television personality, known chiefly for his comic strips. Bill was awarded an MBE in 2000 for "Services to Journalism". He is noted for his charitable work, particularly for the Lord's Taverners, which he has supported for over...
that ran in the satirical magazine Private Eye
Private Eye
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
from 1967 to 1981, and later in The Listener from 1985 to 1986. It gently satirised northern British male culture, and introduced a shocked nation to the scurrilous delights of Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
clog-dancing. This particular variation of the art involved two teams dancing towards each other in formation, followed by each attempting to cripple their opponents with gracefully executed knee and foot moves. Thus the Forward Sir Percy, a synchronized low-level knee attack, the Double Arkwright wi' Ankle Lever, the Heckmondwycke with Reverse Spin and the ever controversial Triple Arkwright. Other routines included the Half Arkwright with Groin Action, the Erotic Elbow Drive and the match-winning Flying Arkwright, performed to cries of, “Keep them knees stylish!”
The team
The Cloggies were undisputed champions of their ‘sport’, usually inflicting grave injuries before repairing to the nearest pub. Their capacity for beer was legendary; their home venue, the Clog & Bells, Blagdon, where Doris the barmaid was always in a welcoming mood. There were also unorthodox activities involving the use of ferretFerret
The ferret is a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators with males being substantially larger than females. They typically have brown, black, white, or mixed fur...
s.
The series lampooned current sports culture and introduced an entire sub-culture of dance leagues, a governing body for the sport (characterised as officious, clumsy, bureaucratic, out-of-touch and based on the real-life Football Association), an idiosyncratic cast of sociopaths and a yearning for earlier, gentler days of greater respect (such as the famous Policeman on a White Bicycle). As a reflection of the officious nature of league officials and umpires (who always had it in for the lads) the scoring system was deeply arcane and complex, with final scores such as 124.863 to 92 being recorded.
The team consisted of:
- Stan (captain), later ennobled as Lord Stan of Blagdon
- Albert (second boot, with his false teeth)
- Neville (third boot; trilby and glasses)
- Arnold (fourth boot)
- Ted (fifth boot, with the grey socks)
- Wally (sixth boot, later deceased, replaced by Norman).
- Norman (bearded).
An unsavoury local resident was Reg Thrumper, the "Blagdon Amateur Rapist".
Origin
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
series, The Archers
The Archers
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...
, which was subtitled an Everyday Story of Country Folk.
Three retrospective collections of the cartoons were published between 1969 and 1977, with titles The Cloggies (1969), The Cloggies Dance Again (1973) and The Cloggies Are Back (1977).
Bill Tidy
Bill Tidy
William Edward "Bill" Tidy, MBE , is a British cartoonist, writer and television personality, known chiefly for his comic strips. Bill was awarded an MBE in 2000 for "Services to Journalism". He is noted for his charitable work, particularly for the Lord's Taverners, which he has supported for over...
's inspiration for this series may have grown out of one of his cartoons in Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
in the mid 1960s, where he parodied the funding objectives and credibility of the Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
by illustrating a group of morris dancers in full costume, gathered around a table outside a pub, behind an enormous pile of empties, with one of them asking "Well lads, what are we going to do wi' rest of Arts Council grant ?"
Final triumph
In one cartoon, the Cloggies were selected to represent Great Britain in the 1966 International Folk Dance Festival, beating the USSR in the final despite Wally’s double hernia, and returned victorious to Blagdon with the Gold Boot of Strichtenstein. They were persuaded to turn professional by their new manager, Morris ‘Zip’ Fassner (later Shufflebottom) and embarked on a world tour before once more returning to the Clog & Bells and rejoining their local league. Their opponents included The Bull & Veterinary Surgeon, The Rat & Goldfish, The Horse & Shovel, The Truss & Slagheap, The Fox & Pervert, The Grunting Duck and Gridley’s Soap Works. In 1966, a strip showed the Cloggies winning the United Kingdom Drunk and Disorderly Shield.Inspiration
Buckland, Oxfordshire
Buckland is a village and civil parish about northeast of Faringdon in the Vale of White Horse District. Buckland was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.-Character and geography:...
, became so inspired by the cartoon characters’ pub-oriented career that they formed their own squad. Photographs from the period show the team in the following order: Stan (Pete Metcalfe), Wally (Gwyn Ellis), Neville (John Barton), Arnold (Iain Murray), Ted (Andy Carr) and Albert (Al Guyver). The shady-looking character is the manager, Morris (Mike Fernie). Arthur (Nigel Brewis), was later named as reserve boot in case of injury or hangover. Bill Tidy personally wrote to the team to officially endorse and encourage them, delighted that “all those years spent labouring on Spam have produced a debased art form”.
Live performances
Comus (John Milton)
Comus is a masque in honour of chastity, written by John Milton. It was first presented on Michaelmas, 1634, before John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater at Ludlow Castle in celebration of the Earl's new post as Lord President of Wales.Known colloquially as Comus, the mask's actual full title is A...
. Buckland was the smallest ever college (120 students) to enter the Sunday Times / NUS Drama competition. The preliminary round took place at Lord Faringdon’s private theatre, whose stage was just wide enough to accommodate six Cloggies dancing abreast. As the play was about to start, the lights failed so everyone settled in the pub until the power-cut ended. The adjudicator seemed much more enthusiastic two hours and several pints later, but there was a serious delay in getting the Cloggies from the bar and back on stage. Their performance was hampered by a spread of fruit and milk underfoot from the previous orgy scene and most spectators felt it was a disaster.
Final triumph
Buckland was one of eight chosen from sixty universities and colleges to travel to Southampton University for the Student Drama Festival Finals in the winter of 1970/71. After sitting through several other productions, the audience went wild when the Cloggies hit the stage at the end of Comus. The Southern Arts Review praised the ‘boisterous rustic dancing Cloggies’, while French radio covered the event, describing them as “un groupe de danseurs folkloriques” and playing a recording of them dancing to the strains of Fairport ConventionFairport Convention
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock and later electric folk band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement...
’s Lark in the Morning – the boots, the bells, the yells. Nicholas de Jongh, drama correspondent of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, wrote that the play was ‘… degraded into a cheap grotesque pantomime’, adding that, ‘the late appearance from the dancing Cloggies underlined the cheapness of the conception.’ This was seen by the lads as a complete vindication of all they had stood for.
The team’s swansong was as dancing shepherds in the British premiere of the medieval French fable Aucassin and Nicolette
Aucassin and Nicolette
Aucassin et Nicolette is an anonymous medieval French chantefable, or combination of prose and verse .-History:...
, translated by Alex Kerr and produced by Pennock in the college grounds on 27 June 1971. The use of a full beer crate as a prop did not interfere with the narrative.