The May Day Tradition

According to one of my articles, the modern May Day tradition that we know and watch, with the pupils from Geddington school, started in 1951. However, we have, in the Archive, an image that looks like a May Day photograph, but is dated 1949.  Whatever the true date, it’s still a tradition that has been kept alive for over 60 years.

Here, on the website, we have been  compiling a list of May Queens, the Consorts, the crowners and all the attendants. A couple of years ago, we published the list as we knew it then and asked if anyone could contribute to it. We had a good response with names, photos and interesting stories. When that source dried up, we went to the school where Brenda Miles and I compared lists and filled in the gaps where we could.

It’s very satisfying to record that the list of May Queens is complete with the exception of 1955!  Does anyone know who it was?

1974 Parade from church. May Queen: Sally Bradbury, Consort: Rodney Bird, Attendants: Kristi Dennis, Helen Kemp.

We also have photos of many of the earlier ‘Queens’, but few of the later ones. We would dearly love to have those to put in the Archive. (One meaning of archive is: a collection of records, it doesn’t mean old age, so don’t be shy!)  Scanned photos in .jpg form to editor@geddington.net or actual photos we can borrow and scan to 9 Grafton Road, please.

Our final request is for names of all the other participants. Below is a .pdf file of the list of those who took part, with lots of blanks and we would very much like to fill in as many as we can of the consorts and attendants and, if you were there and can remember their names, the people who crowned the May Queens.

Thank you for any help you can give. And let’s hope for fine weather on Thursday, this year’s celebration of Geddington’s May Day tradition.

Click here to see the list: May_Day_Queens_of_Geddington_2017