The first of May is the most quintessentially English of dates, founded in deep-seated tradition and springtime celebration. Its bank holiday weekend is always a great time to join up with like-minded souls for a memorable pagan-inspired experience or head for the countryside or aim for the beach. Alas this is not a year for getting out and about, plus this isn't a bank holiday weekend because VE Day commemoration is taking precedence. So here's a rundown of what you might be missing this May Day if only it were happening, which alas it isn't.
1) Maypole dancing(Croxley, 1976)
Englishfolk have been dancing round maypoles since the 14th century, if not in quite the intricate ways of more recent times. Garlanded poles with ribbons made a fine springtime centrepiece for many a village, and still do.
Pictured is the maypole in the village of Croxley Green, today plied by Brownies, but back in the Metro-land era they asked local schoolchildren to do the honours. In 1976 my class of 4th Year Juniors was selected which meant we got to miss several afternoon lessons to practice on the lawn outside the dining hall. Our teacher would plug in the school gramophone and shout instructions over the music as we skipped across the grass trying to remember whether to weave over or under. Susan and I were given the honour of being "twelve o'clock", which I think meant everyone else was supposed to watch us for cues, or just that we were thought the least likely to muck it up. I don't remember much about the final performance in front of an audience of hundreds on the village green, but I do know our faultless performance didn't take place on May Day. The Croxley Revels ("a tradition that stretches back to 1952") are always a midsummer event, so there is the off chance that the Brownies might be back on the Green this year.
2) Magdalen Tower(Oxford, 1986)
For the last 500 years the choir of Magdalen College have sung from the top of their tower at six o'clock on May Morning. Their traditional dawn chorus is Hymnus Eucharistus, the college grace, but in recent years the repertoire has been widened to include 'Now is the Month of Maying'. In Victorian times the tradition started to draw the crowds, who turned up in great numbers to throng Magdalen Bridge before dispersing to make merry and watch morris dancing elsewhere.
In 1986 I lived within walking distance, and didn't have any lectures to go to the following morning, so decided to stay up all night to experience the celebrations for myself. The night passed slowly, padded out by some board games and a walk along a bit of the Oxford Canal with a fellow student. Just before six we headed to Magdalen and joined the motley crowd of town and gown on the bridge, some increasingly the worse for wear. We'd have heard nothing from the choir were it not for the magic of loudspeakers, although the peal of bells which followed was unmissable. The 80s was the heyday of nutters jumping into the river for larks, but I didn't spot anyone foolish enough to try. Heading back to the high street we passed actors performing in shop windows, several hard-to-see morris dancers in Radcliffe Square and knots of Sloane Rangers hunting for somewhere to have a champagne breakfast. I made do with croissants and orange juice, and slept until lunchtime.
3) Morris dancing(Westminster, 2009)
Morris dancing isn't just for the first of May, but the day wouldn't be the same without stick-slapping, bell-jangling and hanky-waving. This English folk tradition has its roots in the 15th century, with a structured revival courtesy of Cecil Sharp at the start of the 20th. With at least 200 sides scattered across the country, you're never normally far away from a well-practised display.
This is Victoria Tower Gardens, one of the sites for the Westminster Day of Dance - an annual morris dancing extravaganza centred on Trafalgar Square. In 2009 I watched the Aldbury Morris Men do some rhythmic thwacking to a slightly bemused audience of mostly tourists, while their hobby horse called Dobbin crept round the back of the crowd to give some of them a fright. He startled a pushchair-bound toddler, knelt suggestively behind a crouching photographer and nuzzled his paper face into the back of a woman's head. Morris dancing's not as staid as you might think.
4) Jack in the Green(Greenwich, 2017)
Part of the May Day tradition, once upon a time, was for one member of the procession to be dressed entirely in foliage - the Jack in the Green. A pyramidal frame draped in leaves, often topped with a crown of flowers, completes the illusion.
Londoners get the opportunity to sample the JitG experience by the banks of the Thames at Deptford courtesy of Fowlers Troop, an offshoot of the Blackheath Morris Men. They've been walking the streets each 1st May since the 1980s, generally using pubs as staging points because alcohol makes any tradition better. The group's banner precedes the procession, and on the day I went a group of drummers, beery 'sailors' and well-dressed hangers-on followed behind.
5) Sweeps Festival(Rochester, 2010)
One of England's largest May Day events, stretched across an entire weekend, is the Rochester Sweeps Festival. Founded in 1980 it brings together over fifty morris dancing teams in celebration of the traditional holiday that chimney sweeps used to enjoy once a year. By embracing Victorian poverty, Rochester has found the only acceptable reason for blacking up.
I took an early train in 2010 and was hugely impressed. With so many morris men (and women) in town, no sooner had one team stepped off the roadway for a break than another had taken their place. Some participants looked like they might be librarians enjoying playing the extrovert, while others were younger and hipper with feathered headdresses of the goth persuasion. Fiddles and accordions, hog roasts and beer. If you've never been, stick it in your diary for the year after next...
6) Pagan debauchery(Hastings, 2014)
...because next year you need to go to Hastings instead. Its Jack in the Green Festival is the most amazing May Day event I have ever attended, a weekend-long excuse for the local population to let rip.
At ten o'clock the Jack in the Green is set loose from Rock-a-Nore Road amid a sea of fancy dress in emerald hues. Some members of the community have merely thrown leaves around a hat, while others have gone the whole hog and donned elaborate flappy costumes revealing a fair amount of skin. Everyone has painted their face green, and spectators who haven't are swiftly marked on the face with a blob from a damp pad. A cast of supporting characters leads the Jack around the narrow streets, backed by relentless drumming, before finally ascending to a ceremony atop WestHill where the poor beast is ceremonially slain. I have never before queued at an ice cream van behind a gaggle of horned beasts, nor seen quite so many otherwise respectable citizens exposing their pagan side to all and sundry.
Also held annually since 1983, but entirely different, is the Inland Waterways Associations Canalway Cavalcade. Dozens of narrowboats crowd into Little Venice's basin, bunting a-flutter, to remind London of the joys of life afloat.
I've attended numeroustimes, joining the crowds attempting to negotiate the surrounding towpath past cheery stalls flogging handicrafts and fudge. Time your visit right to see the Themed Pageant of Boats, the jazz band, the pirate's hat competition or the Punch and Judy. It's so easy to get to there's almost no excuse.
8) Bluebelling(Ashridge, 2018)
Or simply head to the right patch of countryside and soak in the glories of a bank of bluebells. This is Dockey Wood on the National Trust's Ashridge Estate at the peak of the purply-blue season two years ago.
Of all the things I can't do this May Day, I think I'm missing bluebelling the most.
