TERRY HOPKINS, WHAT A GREAT BLOKE
BY JONATHAN NIBBS
At his funeral, Catherine and Jenny spoke beautifully about their Grandad, and together painted a wonderful picture of him as a loving, caring, family man… So it’ll come as no surprise, I’m sure, that he always showed similar qualities as a morris man. His loyalty to the the side was never in question. He loved being part of the team.
At his funeral too, Andrew Evans spoke about how he was persuaded to join the side over 35 years ago, and I’m happy to say that I was one of the bunch of originals in The Ham Tree back in 1989, to suggest that Terry could perhaps do with a spot of vigorous exercise…
Once thus cajoled, and he really didn’t take much persuading, he rapidly became a fine dancer, his rhythm and timing immaculate; immediately he became a committed and invaluable member of the side.
His generosity was ever present. Terry was ever up front and willing on the social side of things, tongs ever ready at our annual family barbecues, whether or not he and Jo were hosting. And they usually were.
He just loved being involved in our many weekends away at home and abroad and, with his near-encyclopaedic knowledge of local pubs, he very soon became our Thursday-evening Summer dance-out organiser.
The enjoyment of a convivial pint or three is pretty much a condition of membership of a morris side. And Terry qualified in that regard wholeheartedly. Most importantly too, he never hung back in the queue for the bar. “What y’avin’ Nibbs? (or whomever,) was possibly his most familiar start to a conversation between us.
Every Boxing Day, his firkin of 6X was on tap to fuel us up with much-needed, restorative sustenance to face the rigours of our dancing finale on the green, after the morning “prancing,” as he often referred to it, around the village.
He was a leading light of our morris brotherhood, our morris family, if you will. And as we well know, all families have their occasional differences. Sometimes those differences of interpretation in the rehearsal room, those differences of belief concerning morris policy and philosophy, dance structure and suchlike, can, on occasion, believe it or not, become quite heated, developing toward what might be construed as a “situation.”
Almost invariably, before blows were exchanged, Terry would offer up a witty, pithy, straight-faced, dead-pan, undercutting mickey-take, wholly defusing the atmosphere of crisis. He always seemed quietly but authoritatively, to be in the right place at the right time, with the right words.
Terry had a very simple, pragmatic attitude towards dancing errors…. If you confessed to him, “ I cocked up in that one…” He’d ask, “Anybody notice?” And if you said, “ phwell, don’t think so.” He’d say, “ No mistake then… Joe Public wouldn’t know.” A simple eloquence, invaluable in dance-out, for novices and veterans alike. Right words, right place, right time…
And that applied to his dancing too. Right up to the end, when he was in considerable pain, he was always up for every dance, and whilst latterly he may not have been the fleetest of foot about the set, he always knew where he needed to be, arriving at the right position at the right time… We miss him tremendously.
