If you want to see the crowning of the May King and Queen in Abingdon and see Maypole Dancing then there is the May Fair at St Nicolas School on Saturday 12th May 2018.
Some of the national newspapers seem to have been making a thing about the revival of traditions such as Morris Dancing and Maypole Dancing. Sales of collapsible maypoles are doing very well, and young people are getting into Morris Dancing.
In 2006 there was a Spring Fair on Abingdon Market Place with Maypole Dancing by Dunmore School. That could have been the last time that happened in the town centre.
In 2006 there was an exhibition of children’s art in the Abbey Buildings. One work featured Maypole Dancing with children from Caldecott School.
I love the old English traditions. There was Morris dancing in Oxford last week end and it lifts peoples moods. Also the tourists love anything to do with Old England. In my view it is very important to keep the old traditions.
Some of those old customs were very picturesque and they do reel in tourists, but do we want to be our country to be an Olde Worlde Theme Park?
And not all of the past was good. Who wants to bring back the stocks and the pillory, bear-baiting and sending small children up the chimneys and down the mines?
Charles Dickens, who gave us Pickwick Papers, also gave us Bleak House, Hard Times, Nicholas Nickelby. He saw the picturesque as a surface under which was social order in desperate need of reform.
Morris Dancing? I love it! But money laundering, sex trafficking and their attendant miseries and corruption will not be eradicated by having a jolly tune lifting my spirits.
As a teacher I can’t help but think that a choice between Education and Going Up Chimneys would focus the minds of some of our more disaffected youth.
Long may we continue with our ancient traditions. It’s good to get a brief respite from some of the woes and miseries of the modern world. Encouraging them to continue does not seem to do any harm to other countries where, for example, Moors and Christian festivals, Up Hella and so on are celebrated.
Thank you for the daily blog; despite the potholes we live in a gorgeous part of the world.