It was hard to believe I’d got there on a Travel Card. London, Zone 6. From the station I walked through the woods to the village green opposite the Blue Ball pub and into a different world. The May Pageant was headed by ponies with riders in fancy dress, followed by the May Queen in a very smart horse-drawn carriage and the church choir sitting in a trailer on hay bales pulled by Billy O’Hallorans tractor. The new May Queen and her entourage followed in Young’s Brewery horse-drawn dray, followed by brownies, beavers, schools, residents associations and more, including the Santa Fe Stagecoach and the Harley Davidson Club, and ending with the Surrey Police.
By the end of the afternoon things were getting edgy and the choirboys had a shootout. You can read more about the May Pageant on My London Diary
Peter Marshall
