Guestling Bradshaw CE Primary School

Traditional English May Day rites and celebrations include Morris dancing, a May queen and maypole dancing. A traditional maypole dance involves pairs of boys and girls standing alternately around the base of the pole, each holding the end of a ribbon. They weave in and around each other, boys going one way and girls going the other and the ribbons are woven together around the pole until the merry-makers meet at the base.

Many of the traditions have pagan roots, celebrating springtime and fertility. Since May 1st is the Feast of St Philip & St James, they became the patron saints of workers. Seeding had traditionally been completed by this date and it was convenient to give farm labourers a day off.

Oxford wakes very early for May Day – madrigals are sung at 6am by the Magdalen College choir from the Great Tower to thousands of revellers who congregate on Magdalen Bridge. A more recent tradition has been for students to jump off the bridge into the murky, chilly (and shallow) river Cherwell. After various injuries the authorities have frowned on this and there is now an annual game of cat and mouse between jumpers and police.

Both Hastings and Whitstable in Kent have revived the Jack in the Green festival with a procession of Morris dancers parade through the town. This has become a major event in Hastings Old Town in recent years.

Padstow in Cornwall holds its annual ‘Obby-Oss’ festivities. This is believed to be one of the oldest fertility rites in the UK; revellers dress in white with red or blue sashes and dance with the Oss through the streets of the town and even through people’s gardens, singing the traditional 'May Day' song. The whole town is decorated with springtime greenery, and every year thousands of people go to watch.

Kingsand, Cawsand and Millbrook in Cornwall celebrate with a Flower Boat ritual: a model ship is covered in flowers and paraded from the Quay at Millbrook to the beach at Cawsand where it is cast adrift. The houses in the villages are decorated with flowers and people traditionally wear red and white clothes. There are further celebrations in Cawsand Square with Morris dancing and maypole dancing.

In St. Andrews, in Scotland, students gather on the beach late on April 30th and run into the North Sea at sunrise on May Day. This is accompanied by torchlit processions and a great deal of revelry.

Both Edinburgh and Glasgow organize Mayday festivals and rallies. In Edinburgh, the Beltane Fire Festival is held on May eve and into the early hours of May Day on the city's Calton Hill.

A traditional May Day was celebrated in Ireland in pagan times as the feast of Bealtaine, now known as Mary's day: bonfires were lit to mark the coming of summer and to banish the long nights of winter.