Wake me early Mother, for I'm to be Queen of the May...
In the third week of May, Whetley Lane Infant’s School in Bradford, prepare for May Day.
Like all the girls in our
class, I longed to be May Queen but who would choose a dumpy 6 year old with short,
dark hair over the willowy girls with blonde hair almost as long as Rapunzel’s?
But I
was chosen to be an Attendant and was overjoyed.
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| I'd been a bridesmaid to my Auntie, so already had a dress |
Naturally, all the girls were
excited about May Day: dressing up, parading down the road in our finery, dancing round the Maypole all appealed to us.
By coincidence, these were all the things the boys hated.
Our teacher tried to make the traditional dances sound macho,
explaining it took stamina to dance ‘Knives and Forks’, ‘Fourpence Ha’penny
Farthing’, ‘Strip the Willow’ and the wonderfully disgusting ‘Dick’s Maggot’.
Colin the rebel said. ‘ I’ll do yon Dick’s Maggot one but I'm not
dancin’ owt else, it’s fer lasses.’
This encouraged rebellion by the other
boys.
Our teacher was wise; she didn’t argue. The next thing we knew, the Headmistress was
standing before us, looking at the dissidents over her spectacles.
‘I understand some of
you don’t want to practice the May Day
dances.’
‘Aye, it’s soft.’ said Colin, bravely as we all quaked; none
of us would dare to cheek a teacher, let alone the Headmistress.
Mrs Twizleton was unmoved.
‘These dances are part of our heritage and men as well as girls have
danced them for hundreds of years. Ask your fathers. I taught them all and they danced.’
Deprived of this usual Court of Appeal, the boys gave in.
Maytime was when Nature
came into her own after a long, hard winter and thanks to caring teachers, city
children learned about woodland flowers and trees, things they never saw in
their day-to-day lives.
Miss Sym brought large
bunches of bluebells and daffodils to school for our Nature Table and they
filled the room with their fragrance.
She explained that like all
things in nature, they were gifts from God.
Maureen put up her hand,
‘Please Miss, did God bring 'em to your
house, like Santa brings toys at Christmas?’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Colin was
scathing.
‘No, not quite,’ Miss Sym ignored the critic,
‘I picked them in Bingley Woods.’
‘Did God say you could?’
asked Stephen.
Our teacher looked disconcerted,
‘Well, not quite Stephen but….’
 |
| Bluebells in Bingley Woods |
‘So you pinched 'em Miss?’
He looked scandalised, ‘me Mam says you musn’t take stuff wots not yourn.’
’And she’s quite right, we
must never take things which don’t belong to us, that’s stealing but God made these flowers for us all to
enjoy, so we are allowed to pick them.’
‘That can’t be reight,’
Colin always had a comment, ‘I picked some tulips from West Park for me Mam’s
birthday, ‘an Parky came and told me Dad and I got strapped fer it.’
The week before the May
procession, we made tissue and crepe paper flowers to decorate our bikes,
trikes, prams or scooters.
‘Can I ‘ave black tissue
paper fer my scooter?’ asked Jim but was disappointed. ‘Grey then, or brown’ll do.’
Inevitably, Colin’s hand
went up ‘Please Miss, I don’t ‘ave a bike an me brother‘d nivver gi’ me a lend
of his.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Miss Sym, always kindly, reassured him, ‘I’ll
arrange something.’
So Colin, whistling
happily, set about making ‘sissy’crepe
flowers.
For the next couple of days
we wound blue, green and yellow crepe paper around the frames of trikes and
scooters and glued paper flowers and streamers to the handles and wheels of
prams until they were almost completely hidden under a paper garden.
Colin had the loan of a
splendid bike and took great pains to decorate it in red, white and blue,
showing great artistic and patriotic flair.
On May Day, we turned out
in our best, so excited we could hardly contain ourselves and many trip to the
lavvy were necessary.
Children without shoes had
been given plimsolls from Lost Property and the poorest, often dressed in
ragged clothing, inadequate for the weather and several sizes too big, were given
white, Crusader-style tabards tied with
a bright ribbon.
The May Queen, holding a bouquet of real, rather than paper
flowers, led the procession from our classroom to the main road, her crown of
honeysuckle and lilac scenting the air.
We Attendants held up her blue velvet train and looked proud.
Behind the royal party came the rest of the
school, pushing their bikes, trikes,
prams, scooters or carrying hoops festooned with paper flowers and singing
lustily.
Every Mum and Grandma and even
some Grand-dads came out to watch and there were calls of: ‘Eee, don’t they
look grand?’
And
‘You’re reight little Bobby Dazzlers.’
Several of the older ladies
who had done exactly the same walk in their youth, wiped tears from their eyes.
Our procession then made its way back to school
and many of the spectators followed to watch the Maypole dancing.
Even Dick’s Maggot went
well.
Colin’s father, standing at
the back in his old army greatcoat, applauded enthusiastically when his son
danced Dick's Maggot and Colin’s expression, formerly acute embarrassment, changed to pride.
