WHAT'S IN A NAME

The "Shaggy Dog" name came about at a workshop Alan Sparkes (club founder) did at St Donats in 1994. The workshop sessions were very intensive and on an evening people met up socially in the bar. Alan took some Cajun music along to do some Cajun dancing. He put the tape on and they started doing some 2 step. There's a particular track called 'Shaggy Dog' and it's a simple line dance. The first night Alan taught his workshop group this line dance and every night following they did the 'Shaggy Dog'. It culminated on the last night when there was a big party and that point the Storytelling Festival started. Lots of storytellers arrived and at 2am, after the party Alan went outside with some loud speakers and seventy folk joined in and danced the 'Shaggy Dog'.
So when he returned to Hebden Bridge and needed a name for the new club he decided on "Tales from the Wharf" because of the name of the pub. 'Shaggy Dog Storytellers' became an umbrella name for the group of storytellers who told stories at Tales from the Wharf.
Over the last 13 years it has been an umbrella name. Nobody has particularly belonged to the group, there have been people who have come in and left but there have been 4 core members who have done the bulk of the work of storytelling in and around the Calder Valley. That's Christine McMahon, Paul Degnan, Rachel Loise and Alan Sparkes. We work well as a group, we enjoy working together and we've had a lot of fun and so we like to go out as the 'Shaggy Dog Storytellers'.

As you can see, it's a much more complicated story than even most members of the club realise. Most people think the name Shaggy Dog Storytellers relates to the type of tale known as "the shaggy dog story".

Cajun dance or shaggy dog story, they're both apt...you pays your money, you take your choice!

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