Tom Woodward (1911-1987)

Moose
My earliest recollection of Tom was when he played for a display that Jockey Morris were giving on Monkey Island, on the Thames (I don't know where). This was one of a series of Sunday events throughout the summer arranged for the hotel by Sybil Clark of the Midlands English Folk Dance and Song Society. It was there that I first heard him play The English Nightingale on his tin whistle. What a fantastic performance. We gave several performances and, each time Bill Kinsman introduced him, 5 years was added to Tom's age so that he was about 90 by the end of the afternoon, and Tom was getting more and more annoyed.

On this subject, he was some 20 years older than myself and, when we were away on a week's holiday course at Halsway Manor, he said "I shall be 90 at the turn of the century. Will you play for me to dance a jig on my birthday?" But, of course, it was not to be. As he was on his own, Mu and I several times asked him to come with us and we were most impressed with his walking, not obviously strenuous, but he covered the ground much faster than us at an easy lope. Also, when there was difficult terrain to negotiate, like descending a steep, rough bank, whereas we picked our way carefully down the slope, he just seemed to run or slide down. His eyesight was also superb and, when he was walking, he was always looking around, so that it was he that saw the Hunt on the far side of the valley, and the swarm of flying ants hovering in the thermal above a bush about 50 yards away. He was the sole musician for the week and, when he was free, he could be found at the grand piano composing yet more of Tom's Tunes. He lived in a canalside cottage at Stoke Pound, with a privy down the garden in which he grew his vegetables, in the garden that is, not the privy.

Tom had come to music fairly late in life. He only took up music when he was in the army. He volunteered for the band where they taught him to play the fife.

You probably know that he was in the folk group Aunt Mary Moses, but I only saw them once and there are probably others more knowledgeable on this. Another thing I remember is that, at Jockey Christmas parties, we played silly games, one of which was to dance some suitable elegant dance balancing books on your head, and Tom always won this, not just because he was an elegant dancer, but being bald the book stuck to the top of his head!

At a Stafford ring meeting, the musicians were ranged in front of the Co-op's plate glass window where I was playing my fiddle alongside Tom, and the discords were so terrible that I stopped playing. A little later, I found myself at the other end of the line and, joining in again, found myself reasonably in tune with the other musicians. However, when playing next to Tom, again the discords reappeared. The following conversation ensued.

Moose: "Is your box in tune Tom?"

Tom: "Oh no, I don't bring my best box out on these rough Morris Do's"

Moose: "Doesn't that give you a problem?"

Tom: "Oh no, it gives it more bite!"

He played for ladies morris sides, which turned out to be an advantage when he was in hospital, which he hated, because they were able to look after him on the domestic front. Mu and I went to see him and were able to cheer him up a bit, but he had his box brought in and was able to entertain his fellow patients.

Hugh Rippon
I cannot remember when I first met Tom Woodward. It may have been with Jockey Morris Men in the sixties, or it may have been.at Sidmouth in about 1970 with a group called Aunt Mary Moses. My first real contact with him was at a ceilidh in the early seventies in Kidderminster when he was playing with a group called Worcestershire Source. After that he kept cropping up in an eminently musical dance band called Grassroots and it was they' who encouraged him to produce from his collection the selection of tunes published as Tom's Tunes. They were outstanding for their danceability.

Tom had one of the biggest collections of traditional and contemporary dance tunes outside Cecil Sharp House, which.he had amassed over 50 years. In addition, he had a wide knowledge of dance traditions and it was this, together with his own prowess as a dancer, which ensured that his dance tunes were indeed 'dance' tunes.