On the May Day Bank Holiday, many of us get a day off from work, school or study. Informants contributing to the Survey of English Dialects remember May Day celebrations being an annual highlight. Descriptions of May Day celebrations featuring games, sports, fairground rides and Maypole dancing were contributed up and down the country.
‘Maypole, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, 1964.’ (LAVC/PHO/P1625) by Stewart Sanderson
On the May Day Bank Holiday, many of us get a day off from work, school or study. An informant in Hampshire recalled the act of maying when children made garlands of wild flowers and carried them from house to house, singing ‘Here is my garland fresh and gay, please to remember first of May.’ In Little Bentley, Essex, celebrations included crowning the May Queen and games of greasy pole and catch a greasy pig! May Day was a chance to have a day off work and to have some fun. In some communities, it was the day when farm labourers were hired.
Listen to Mr F Johnson, a retired farmer and railway worker in Edingale, Staffordshire, recalling the local May Day celebrations.
‘Sound Recordings, Staffordshire by Stanley Ellis’ (LAVC/SRE/A730r)
A transcription for this audio can be found (here)
Another May time celebration that was mentioned by a number of informants, but has since fallen out of fashion, is Oak Apple Day or King Charles Day. Celebrated on 29 May, this event commemorates the restoration of the English monarchy in May 1660. In Beckingham, Lincolnshire, anyone not wearing a royal oak (a sprig of oak leaves or oak apple) would be stung with nettles. In Wiltshire, they would be taunted with a chant. In Cheshire, people were required to carry bob (carry an acorn) throughout the day.
As summer progressed, many communities also held an annual feast or fair.
Many of the people interviewed up and down the country mentioned Halloween and Bonfire Night. James Gledhill, a retired millhand in Golcar, Yorkshire, remembered collecting wood the week before Bonfire Night, while in this audio Bill Stevenson, a retired painter in Carleton, Yorkshire, remembers pranks on Bonfire Night and Mischief Night (the night before Bonfire Night).
Bill Stevenson, a retired painter in Carleton, Yorkshire, remembers pranks on Bonfire Night and Mischief Night.
‘Sound Recordings, Yorkshire’ ( LAVC/SRE/A723r ) by Stanley Ellis
A transcription for this audio can be found (here)
An informant in Staffordshire remembered guising: dressing up on Bonfire Night. They also recalled Soulin’, singing ‘Soul, soul, an apple or two’ from house to house on 2 November, or All Souls’ Day, a day in the Christian Church calendar on which the souls of those who have died are remembered.
Another autumn festival, described by an informant in Staffordshire, was St Clement’s Day. Celebrated on 23 November, children sang the song ‘St Clement’s is once a year’ and were given apples and pears.
Many of the communities interviewed by the fieldworkers remembered harvest as a major autumn celebration. Most of the memories shared about harvest involve a meal and dancing and/or a holiday for farm workers at the end of the season, but the names given to the festivities varied. These included Kim Supper (Northumberland and Westmorland – now part of Cumbria), Hockey (Essex and Norfolk), Harvest Home (Kent) and Wakes (Derbyshire). Informants in Northamptonshire and Norfolk recall the celebrations being paid for by a gift of money called a largesse.
Corn dollies, like this one purchased in a pub in Monk Fryston in North Yorkshire in 1963, often had a place of honour at the harvest banquet table.
‘Corn Dolly’ (LAVC/PHO/P1831) by Stewart Sanderson
Children climbing on a pile of wood and discarded furniture which has been built up into a bonfire (unlit at this point), on wasteland in Dewsbury (West Yorkshire).
‘Children and Bonfire’ (LAVC/PHO/P1969) by Stewart Sanderson
Corn dollies were traditionally made from the last sheaf of corn cut at harvest time. The Corn Spirit was believed to live or be reborn in the ornament, which was kept until the following spring to ensure a good harvest.
