Anyone for a Maypole dance?

It's May day, hooray. I remember as a child loving dancing round the Maypole at school, and at the village fetes near the village my aunt lived in in the Cotswolds. But now my children's extremely multicultural, politically correct school doesn't do Maypole - probably much too English, and I'm worried that my girls will never get to have a go. They know all about it thanks to Angelina goes to the Fair, which starts off with a bit of jolly Maypole dancing and they've heard me raving on about it like some old grannie so now I've got to make it happen. Any one out there know of some good Maypole options - or share my childhood nostalgia for those twisted coloured strings and complex interweavings? Am I going mad and my rosie memories totally misplaced? Will my girls hate it?

Comments

[Daisy Evans]

They always have a maypole at the May Fete at the English Folk Dance and Song Society at Cecil Sharpe House, London NW1, near Primrose Hill

17 Sat EFDSS May Fete: An all-day celebration of folk song and dance
http://www.efdss.org

[meg]

if you want to line it up for next year, i can give you the name of an extremely nice village where your daughter can take part in a maypole thang. let me know.

[Delilah]

Hooray hooray the First of May
Outdoor sex begins today

This thread brings back horrific memories of a cultural exchange camping trip in Bavaria sponsored by the European Commission. On the first night we were supposed to share a prepared traditional dance or song. The other national contingents all sang mournful traditional songs in perfect harmony accompanied by complicated instrumental solos. Our British contingent consisted of an Irishman, an Italian who had been sent to school in England, a couple of Dutch-Irish, and one genuine Englishman. Caught on the hop, we tried to sing "Jerusalem" but got lost after four lines. Then we tried to invent a Morris Dance using sticks picked up in the forest and Kleenexes, which went about as well as you can imagine. The ring of unimpressed Spanish, Dutch, German, Danish and Polish faces in the firelight remains with me to this day.

[Annamac]

I have a vague memory of maybe one maypole dance at school, but I remember plenty of morris dancing, being in a mummers play and being in the school country dancing team. I don't thing we ever won anything. Except I did get a special commendation certificate a couple of years ago when at the sports day at my daughter's first school. The children in her class were doing a country dancing display, but needed some volunteers from the audience to make up the correct numbers as various children were skiving, er - off sick. So a few of us stepped forward to make idiots of ourselves. She was very proud of my certificate!

[kieransmum]

We all did country dancing at school. At State school, I hasten to add.
We were in the countryside (New Forest).

[M]

Yes, thankyou, J! The perfect spring poem, I'd say.

[J]

my mother always quoted it every spring, I always remember it around now.

[Jane2]

Gosh, thanks, J, I really appreciate that.
Love the cadence.
Love the last verse; the idea is still the same, that we tread transiently over the earth, and it will be there after we've gone.

[j]

Jane2, on the other hand Houseman also wrote

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.

On russet floors, by waters idle,
The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
In leafy dells alone;
And traveller’s joy beguiles in autumn
Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses
The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest
Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter
And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season,
The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway
Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest
Would murmur and be mine.

For nature, heartless, witless nature,
Will neither care nor know
What stranger’s feet may find the meadow
And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
If they are mine or no.

[Sho]

I think the problem in England with not hanging on to traditions is that a lot of them seem to have fallen by the wayside in urban areas (not sure about the countryside) way before all the PC came in.

I'm fascinated to see other religious and cultural ceremonies, and most of my friends (from whatver ethnic or cultural backgound) are too. In my experience, most people are up for a bit of fun, so I'm sure if there was an event everyone would join in.

But if Maypole dancing is to be retained, everyone will have to start planning now for next year and make sure there is enthusiasm for the event.

Things like Yorkshire Day (1st of Augst if anyone is interested) seems to be picking up, and as far as I know that's pure invention (probably by the tourist board).

Anyway: here the Mayday celebrations fall into two categories. It starts with Walpurgisnacht on 30th April. The bad spirits run around and hide things from outside your house (unless you bring them in) so 1st May early morning is full of people looking for their doormats and rubbish bins.

This is followed by Tanz in den Mai which is an excuse to have fun (and make a noise to frighten away the bad spirits - to stop them hiding the bins)

On Mayday (which we celebrate on the 1st, whatever day of the week it falls on) we raise a maypole (which is usually a stub of silver birch attached to a ribbon-bedecked pole) and listen to the village bad and there is a church service for those inclined. Followed by sausages and beer. I've never seen any May-pole dancing but I suspect that further south there might be some.

Oh and of course we have the usual 1st May marches, demonstrations and (alas, yesterday) riots.

[Vanessa]

I was May Queen - one of the highlights of my junior school years, especially as it was a vote thus introducing us all to democracy - I've been a fan ever since... ;-)

[Lazy Mummy]

Today I'm in Montana, which is truly cowboy country. Flew in over the Rockies, still lots of snow on them. I suspect that May Day celebrations here consist of teenage boys throwing their guns in the back of their pickup truck & heading out to the mountains to see if they can shoot themselves some fresh-out-of-hibernation bear...

[Lazy Mummy]

I'm glad to hear the traditions are surviving - at least in some places! I worry that some (many) of the old English traditions are going the way of the dodo because of all the pandering to political correctness and bending over backwards to accommodate every immigrant group's culture/traditions.

(Not that it's wrong to accommodate different cultures; I actually think that's really important, but I do think some traditions have fallen by the wayside with modern technology/changing society and there's no real need to lose sight of our cultural heritage while accommodating others. The two should be able to coexist).

[supermother]

I remember my older daughter who was in country dancing club at school at 11 years old learning some very complex dances (sort of school where the girls do things to perfection) and I videoed them outside around a may pole and going other country dances. They were so perfect at the steps. Anyway roll on another 10 years and at her 21st birthday one of the walls of the club/restaurant was a screen so I took the tape and we played as people came in for their first drink and 2 or 3 of those other girls were there too now 10 years older. It was very sweet. I suspect they don't use their may day dances at the night clubs in London they frequent somehow.

[Jane2]

Yes, J and M, let's celebrate the beauty of spring. Which is late this year. To paraphrase Browning, "I'm glad I live in England, now that May is here..." and to paraphrase Houseman, "Of my threescore years and ten, 55 won't come again, and since to look at things in bloom, 15 springs is little room, about the woodlands I will go, to see the cherry hung with snow."
Does anyone have to hand a copy of Gerard Manley Hopkins, to add his glorious, ecstatic imitations of birdsong?

[M]

My heart lifted as I watched some brightly- garlanded girls with posies and beatific smiles walk into town this morning, past swaying blossom trees. It is a place that has inspired many myths and has numerous local rites of spring and fertility symbols.
Our school has a maypole dance, same rules as J's.

[Emma]

A Maypole is a pagan thing isn't it? Very sexual...

That said I'd love to see a proper May celebration.

[j]

This morning I walked through lovely early summer green fields past a very distinctive may morning celebration- all in bright pink robes with a christmas tree and a bonfire. No idea what their allegiance is.

my children's primary school still always has a maypole and may king and queen from the nursery school, and no acount is taken of faith or race in picking the child- its more who can be relied on not to wet their knickers and/or run away ;)

[DebbieD]

We still have a maypole dance! The church by the green in London's Southgate always has a fund raising fair on this Bank Holiday and local school children (organised through the church) get to dance around the maypole. We also still have a May Queen and entourage. And the whole community turns out to mix and mingle around an array of very old-fashioned stalls - really retro without meaning to be... The community includes Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Muslims, Hindu's, Jews, you name it we're a mixed old bunch - since when was Maypole dancing religious?