Students from West Coast Highland Dancing School in Greenwood with the 90-year-old Dewar Cup.
Camera IconStudents from West Coast Highland Dancing School in Greenwood with the 90-year-old Dewar Cup. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

A toast to Dewar

Tyler BrownJoondalup Times

As part of this year’s WA Highland Dancing Championship, there will also be a celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Dewar Cup trophy, presented to the winner of the 16 and over championship.

Event organiser Jenni Lush said she had been busy tracking down past Dewar Cup champions and their families to invite to the lunch at Mater Dei College.

She said she was particularly happy to be able to locate winners from as early as the 1930s with the 1937 winner Betty Hall (nee Robertson), now aged 95, and the 1942 winner Gwelda Tindal (nee Bresland), now 89, who will both be attending.

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The family of Gwen Gough, who won four consecutive years from 1932 to 1935, will travel from Bunbury to attend, bringing with them her kilt and medals.

Other guests include Kevan Johnson who won in 1947 and 1948 and was the 2013 Equity Lifetime Achievement Award recipient (presented by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance), Belinda Lush who won the trophy seven times in 1999, 2001-2004, 2006 and 2008 and a contingent of former winners travelling from Kalgoorlie.

“It has been difficult locating past Dewar Cup winners,” Ms Lush said.

“I’m still looking for 16 dancers to invite, spanning from 1926 to the 1970s.”

The dancing championship, where last year’s world junior champion Ellis Hayes, from Scotland, will be competing for the Dewar Cup, will start at 11am, with the lunch at 1pm and a presentation of past Dewar Cup winners, welcomed by a bagpiper, at 2pm.

There will also be a display of memorabilia.For more information, email jenni_lush@bigpond. com or call 0410 711 474.