The dolls are NOT toys! They must be handled carefully and not given to  children.

In particular you must not bend any of the joints laterally as they would be easily damaged.

The dolls are all made from a selection of wood. I can vary the choice of wood on the character dolls to suit the dancing style you may prefer for them. For example Jack is made from willow. He is very light and nimble and is therefore good at keeping up a fast pace. Clive I made from beech and he is much heavier and therefore sluggish - unlike the real Clive of course!

The more basic dolls such as Jollity and Coster are made from a mix of utile and pine. This ensures they have a good ring sound and are hard wearing.

The Kipper dolls are made from a mix of piranha pine, and utile. The hard piranha smoothes down well to provide a good surface to show off the Kipper tie!

Henery and Funniful dolls are completely turned on a lathe and the body is made of willow to keep him light.

The joints on the Jollity, Coster, and Kipper dolls are made of wood. On the more expensive dolls they are made of brass. Obviously the brass joints will last a lot longer than the wooden ones. They also make the dolls louder.

Most dolls are painted with acrylic paint and then varnished with polyurethane. This provides a hard durable finish. I can paint the character dolls using oil based paints. This results in a smoother finish, but takes much longer.

The boards as supplied are exterior ply wood which has been painted  with floor grade polyurethane to increase their durability.

I can supply solid wood boards to order at £20 - 25 extra. These are much tougher,  and produce a clearer ringing sound when being danced upon. See “Buy” page for details. I also can supply “spatula” shaped boards for £5 each or £3 extra if ordering a doll.

Where to begin?

• Firstly my wife Caroline who plays her melodeon on many of  the tunes and dances. (Otherwise, most tunes are from the Morris Dance Music Album.No MCCD 376).

• Secondly, most of the material about Music Hall Artistes has been gleaned from the website below which is devoted to the Music Hall.

http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/default.php

• Thirdly to Phil O’Dwyer for use of his tune “Tennents Stupor” on the Rocky Dancing Video.

• Fourthly to Roy Hudd for his recording of Leslie Sarony  in 1980 singing “Jollity Farm”.

• Next to Rennie and Pat Pickles for inspiration from their book Jig Dolls “The Brightest of Entertainers”

• Lastly to my session friends Pris, Mike, Roman, John, Bill, Dave, et al for enduring many years of me dancing my dolls.