May Queens | >Re-PHOTO

Pratts Bottom & Walton on the Hill May Queens – 2009

Pratt’s Bottom & Walton on the Hill: On Saturday 16th May 2009 I photographed two May Queen events on the outskirts of London, at Pratt’s Bottom in Kent and Walton on the Hill in Surrey. The two places are around 10 miles apart as the crow flies, and I had gone with a couple of friends, one driving a car, and we managed to make the journey between the two rather more quickly than the roughly two and a half hours it would have taken by public transport.

Pratts Bottom May Queen

Pratts Bottom, Bromley

*Chislehurst May Queen group wait for the start of procession at Pratt’s Bottom*

Pratts Bottom is just inside the boundary of the London Borough of Bromley, though it seems very much out in the country, and Kent begins just a few yards away. On my first visit there, walking from the station at Knockholt I had wandered along a short stretch of the main road actually in that county. You can see my account and pictures from that 2008 event at Pratts Bottom Village Fete.

Both in 2008 and in 2009 the weather for the Village Fête was pretty dismal, and you can see umbrellas in many of the pictures – with May Queen groups having them in their realm colours.

*http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2009/05/16/20090516-d0091.jpg*

Pratts Bottom (most locals seemed to spell it without the apostrophe on my map) has its own May Queen group, and the event included other May Queen groups from Green Street Green, Orpington and Pett’s Wood.

Fortunately the rain stopped and the sun came out for the procession up Rushmore Hill to the village green where the fête was taking place. The procession was led by a cadet marching band and Miss Bromley. The band at the front set off at a cracking pace that left some of the younger members of the May Queen realms struggling to keep up – and making life a little difficult for photographers.

*Thr Pratts Bottom May Queen is crowned*

On the village green there was a brief ceremony in which the 2009 Pratt’s Bottom May Queen was crowned by the last year’s queen, and Miss Bromley officially opened the fete. Then we walked down to the car to drive to another May Fayre.

More pictures from 2009 at Pratt’s Bottom May Queen.

Walton on the Hill May Pageant

Walton on the Hill, Surrey

This was another event with a May Queen that I had photographed previously – this time in 2007, but not part of the London May Queen events.

The May Pageant here was started (or ‘revived’) forty years ago in 1969 and while many such local carnival events had faded away by the end of the twentieth century this one was still enjoying wide popular support, with crowds on the street.

It’s a community event with the Vicar and her church choir sitting on hay bales in a cart pulled by a tractor, various school and nursery groups, youth groups and more, including a May Queen in a car and her rather mixed entourage in a Young’s brewery dray.

And as the procession reached the fairground I stopped taking pictures and sat down to have a drink before going home. For some reason I didn’t include the pictures here of the May Queen and her friends in the post on My London Diary but there are many more pictures from the event at Walton on the Hill May Pageant.

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Brian, Bears, Morris and May Queens – 2006

Brian, Bears, Morris and May Queens: On Saturday 13th May 2006 I went to Parliament Square where I photographed resident peace protester Brian Haw and Morris Dancers, going on to more dancers performing in Trafalgar Square as a part of a Westminster Day of Dance. From there the Underground took me out to Hanger Lane from where I walked to Brentham to photograph the 100th anniversary of the first Brentham May Queen crowning.

Brian Haw at Parliament Square

Brian and the Bears

Brian, Bears, Morris and May Queens - 2006

Brian Haw lost the appeal by the government over his protest in Parliament Square, the court deciding that the Serious Organised Crimes And Police Act did apply to his protest after all, despite it having started around 4 years before the act came into force. It seems to be a decision that reflects more on the ability of the government to apply pressure rather than one that suggests an independent judiciary.

At the moment, Brian is still there, his protest now regulated by the police, but it seems rather likely that at some moment the feel convenient they will decide to terminate it. On Saturday morning I went to have a short word with him and take some more pictures, particularly of some of the bears who are with him.

His protest from the start has been about the killing of children, at first by the effects of sanctions, then by the war, and the teddy bear symbolises this (I think of one of the most poignant images from the Second World War, by Cecil Beaton, of a child in a hospital bed with a teddy bear.) I hope to be back to see Brian tomorrow, with a few friends, if he is still there. [He was, and depite constant harassment remained there until ill-health forced him to leave in 2011, dying in a German hospital six mohnths later.]

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Westminster Morris Dance Day

St Margarets & Trafalgar Square

For several years there has been a dance festival in Westminster in May, with teams of Morris Dancers from around the country. I caught up with them briefly dancing in front of St Margaret’s Church next to Westminster Abbey, then a little later in Trafalgar Square.

Although i’ve never had a great desire to take up Morris myself, it certainly is one of our English traditions, going back at least 500 years – the first written record of it is in 1448.

It was still alive in many villages in the nineteenth century and a revival started in the early twentieth century particularly through the work of Cecil Sharp, who collected over 170 different dances around the country and started the English Folk Dance Society in 1911. Sharp and Mary Neal published books of dances, and in the 1920s and 30s, country dancing became a part of most young school children’s week. How I hated it in the 1950s!

It is perhaps that enforced participation that led to Morris Dancing being thought of as something false and lacking in credibility. In a curious anomaly, our Arts Councils refuse to support English ethnic dances while (quite rightly) giving aid to foster dance and related activities among minority ethnic groups. Despite this, Morris Dancing has continued to grow both in the UK and now increasingly abroad, particularly in Canada and the USA.

All the teams in Trafalgar Square were men, although there are also many women dancers. One of the things that comes out in my pictures is that the dance is at times a very athletic event. Many of the traditional dances use swords or staves and have a link to martial arts. Morris also has a strong link to another English tradition, the ale house.

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Brentham Centenary May Day Festivities

Brentham Estate, Ealing

May continued for me with another May Queen. Last year (2005) I had photographed the oldest continuing May Queen event at least in the London area, the Merrie England and London May Queen Fayre at Hayes, Kent, held continuously since 1913. This year I went instead to Brentham, where a May Fayre with maypole dancing was held in 1906, and its centenary was held this year.

For this event, the organisers had managed to find and invite along many former May Queens, including some from the 1950s. Some had come long distances to be there, including one now living in America.

Brentham was one of the earliest “garden village” estates, built by ‘Ealing Tenants’ a co-partnership housing scheme started in 1901 and largely completed by 1915. The road layout was designed by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, and it was in many ways a model for other and better known garden villages.

The Brentham May Queen is less formalised that the south London events, with little or no long speeches and ceremonies (unlike Hayes it was not set up by a Dulwich schoolmaster.)

As well as the May Queen Elect and previous May Queens, each with a small group of attendants, there is also a herald who leads the parade (aided today by a brass band) Brittania, Sailor and Soldier, and, leading the large group of around 150 young girls dressed in white with flowers, a Jack In The Green, covered with leaves, with just bare legs and sandals visible.

*The crowning of the 2006 Brentham May Queen*

After the parade around the area, there was a short ceremony in one of the fields by the River Brent in which last year’s May Queen crowned the new queen, and a very short speech. Following this were country dances and dancing round the maypole, but I left before this began.

Many more pictures begin here.

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Crowning of the Hayes Realms – 2008

Hayes, Bromley

Hayes in the south-east corner of Greater London in the London Borough of Bromley is at the centre of a tradition that goes back over a hundred years, the London May Queen. At its height in the inter-war period this attracted great publicity and was filmed by Pathé News for showing in cinemas around the country – you can watch some of those films on their site.

I came to the May Queens from the posthumous book of photographs by British photographer Tony Ray-Jones ‘A Day Off’, published in 1974 soon after his tragically early death which contained a handful of his pictures from May Queen festivals taken in the late 1960s.

One of these, not one of his better photographs and I wondered why it had made the book, was ”May Queen Gathering, Sittingbourne, 1968‘, which shows around 30 young women all wearing crowns in three rows in front of a maypole. I wasn’t impressed by his picture but thought it seemed an intriguing event to photograph. The location in the caption (written after his death by a colleague) was corrected in a later publication and he had taken it at the annual London May Queen festival at ‘Hayes, Kent’ in London.

The London May Queen festival still follows the design and pattern laid down at its inception by schoolmaster Joseph Deedy in 1913. The Hayes festival at which the London May Queen is crowned is simply the peak of a series of events by various May Queen ‘realms’ each with their own May Queens and retinues from various communities in this area of south and south-east London.

I’ve often written at greater length about the organisation including several posts on this site such as Ray-Jones & London May Queen – 2005. My work with the May Queens was encouraged by a major London museum who promised me a show – but this was cancelled at the last minute for financial reasons, I think a victim of the 2008 financial crisis. I had hoped we would bring out a book to accompany the show, but in the end I self-published this, bringing out a second edition with minor corrections in 2012, a year before the crowning of London’s 100th May Queen.

The book preview at the link above shows the whole book, including my fairly lengthy texts and over 70 pictures, mainly from London May Queen.

Although the event may seem rather quaint with queens, pages and other positions in the realms, the activities are designed to be fun for the young girls but also to develop their confidence and self reliance. And there are teas with cake.

Some girls drop out as they get older, and progress through the various levels of the realms and of the London May Queen group to which the realm queens move up is determined solely by seniority in the organisation.

Altogether for the project I took over 12,000 pictures, adding a few more when I was later invited back to photograph her crowning by one of the later May Queens. All the pictures with this post are from 19th April 2008 in Hayes.

More pictures from the Crowning of the Hayes Realms.

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Carnival, Racist Deportations & more Naked Cyclists – 2009

Carnival, Racist Deportations & more Naked Cyclists: I began work on Saturday 13 June 2009 photographing a carnival procession in Carshalton in the south of London, travelled to Islington in north London for a protest against Britain’s racist and inhuman immigration policies and finally covered the uncovered cyclists taking part in the 2009 London World Naked Bike Ride, photographing the preparations in Hyde Park ad the start of the ride there and then on the ride at Waterloo and in the West End.

Carshalton Carnival Procession – St Helier – Carshalton

Carnival, Racist Deportations & more Naked Cyclists - 2009 — *Sutton’s May Queen 2009 came to look at my cameras*

My account of this event on My London Diary begins with a slightly unkind description “of the St Helier estate, a huge sprawling area built by the LCC 1930 to a kind of debased Garden City plan almost entirely without the charm of those earlier developments on what had previously mainly been the lavender fields of Mitcham.”

The procession began next to the “St Helier Hospital [built] in the modern style of the 30s, facing the imaginatively named St Helier Open Space” outside the Sutton Arena leisure centre and as usual I found the more interesting pictures were those I took there rather than on long procession to Carshalton where it was to end at a fair in Carshalton Park.

I’d come to the carnival largely because I was then working on a project on London’s May Queens, with several groups of them from across south London taking part in the procession, along with various other local organisations. And a Dalek and others in fancy dress.

The Rotary had brought their Father Christmas coming out unseasonably from the chimney of a small four-wheeled house towed behind a car at the rear of the procession. He’d been there too when I photographed the carnival previously in 2004.

It was a long an hot trek to Carshalton from St Helier, and the procession paused at Carshalton College for a break. I’d walked enough and made my way to the station missing the rest of the event and the funfair in Carshalton Park.

Carshalton Carnival Procession.

Speak out against Racism and Deportations – Angel, Islington

Britain’s major political parties at the prompting of our mainstream press have long promoted myths about migrants and asylum seekers, the more rabid of our tabloids in particular promoting the views of clearly racist columnists who publish stories about them getting homes and huge benefits, depriving the working class of housing, pushing down wages, taking “our jobs“, making it impossible to see doctors and more.

Nothing could of course be further from the truth. It’s the greed of the wealthy and government policies that have led to these problems – and without the migrants we would be in a considerably worse position. It’s something that is glaringly obvious when we need to make use of the NHS which would have collapsed entirely without them, but also in other areas. Demonising migrants is a deliberate policy divert public attention and anger away from the real problem of our class-based society. Divide and rule by our rulers,

Most of those who settle here from abroad want nothing more than to work and contribute to our society, though we make it hard for many of them to do so. They want a better life, particularly for their children and often work long hours for it. Migrant workers who clean offices are often more qualified than those who work in them – but their qualifications are not recognised here, and asylum seekers are unable to work except in the illegal economy.

Some facts:

Over a quarter of NHS doctors were born abroad (and others are the sons and daughters of migrants);
Immigrants are 60% less likely to claim benefits than people born in Britain;
Studies sho immigration has no significant effect on overall employment, or on unemployment of those born in Britain.

This campaigning protest in a busy shopping area outside one of London’s busier Underground Stations was organised by the Revolutionary Communist Group and was also part of a campaign by the Suarez family to prevent the deportation of John Freddy Suarez Santander, a 21 year-old father with a 3 year-old son. He came here from Colombia when he was six and grew up here. As a teenager he committed an offence and served 7 months in a young offenders institution.

Two years after he had served his sentence, the New Labour government passed a law to deport all immigrants with a criminal record, and an order was made for him to be sent back to Colombia, where he has no remaining relatives. His case in 2009 was still being considered at the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR generally asserts that juvenile offences should not be seen as a part of a criminal record, but the Home Office decided the month before this protest to deport him anyway, and this was only stopped by his family going to the airport.

Speak out against Racism & Deportations

World Naked Bike Ride – London

I’ve written rather often about this event, intended as a protest against the domination of our lives by ‘car culture’ which has resulted in our towns and cities and transport networks being designed around the priorities of motorists and road transport rather than us as pedestrians and cyclists – and to serve the interests of the companies that make cars and lorries. And it has resulted in illegal levels of pollution causing massive health problems.

Although it’s certainly an eye-catching event, it isn’t always very clear why it is taking place to those standing on the pavements, gazint at it in amazement, laughing and recording it on their phones. It’s probably good for our tourist industry, though I rather think London has too many tourists anyway, particularly as I struggle to walk over Westminster Bridge.

Heres one paragraph of what I wrote in 2009 – you can read the rest on My London Diary.

Some riders did have slogans on their bodies, mainly about oil and traffic, and some bikes carried A4 posters reading REAL RIGHTS FOR BIKE and CELEBRATE BODY FREEDOM or had flags stating ‘CURB CAR CULTURE’ which made clear the purpose of the event to the careful onlooker, but for most people it seemed simply a spectacle of naked or near-naked bodies. Though of course also a rare treat for any bicycle spotters among them.

I didn’t censor the pictures I put on line from the event though I’ve carefully selected those in this post. I think that there is nothing offensive about the naked human body but I included the following statement with the link to more pictures I posted then and which you can still see online.

Warning: these pictures show men and women with no clothes on. Do not click this link to more pictures if pictures of the naked human body may offend you.

Many more pictures at World Naked Bike Ride – London.

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May Queens in April – 2007

May Queens in April: Most years on April 28th I’ve photographed events around one the the more important but largely overlooked by media occasions of the year – International Workers Memorial Day – which remembers those who have died in the workplace, with the slogan ‘Remember the dead – fight for the living‘. You can read a number of accounts of some of these events on My London Diary – such as this one from 2013.

But some years – and this year, 2025 is another – I have other commitments on April 28th and have not been able to cover International Workers Memorial Day. In 2007 I was working hard on a project on London’s May Queens for a museum exhibition (unfortunately cancelled at the final stage due to financial constraints) and needed to be in south-east London to work on that. My day on Saturday 28 April began in Chislehurst and then moved on to Bromley where a number of local May Queens were crowned.

After the exhibition was cancelled I put together some of the pictures from these events in a book, London’s May Queens, still available. It’s perhaps important to say that these events are not beauty competitions but activities to raise the confidence and abilities of the girls who take part, including in public speaking and performance and that the various roles in the local groups and the London May Queen group to which they can move on are assigned solely on their length of membership. It still follows the structures and texts from its founding years.

All of the rather detailed text from the second edition of the book both about the history of May Queens, this and other May Queen events around London and around half of its pictures can be viewed in the book preview on-line. Here is the text about the book on Blurb:

2012 saw the crowning of the London’s 100th May Queen. The first Merrie England and London May Queen festival was held in 1913 and it has continued every year since, still on the same lines. In the 1920s and 30s it was a major event, covered by cinema newsreels and competitions in daily newspapers, but now it is known to few outside the over 20 local realms that take part in the annual event. The 72 pictures in this work give a unique insight into this community event.

Here with the usual corrections are the two posts I wrote in 2007 on My London Diary. The pictures here are all from that day and you can see more at the links below each post.

Chislehurst May Queen Society – Fund-Raising Pub Crawl

Chislehurst isn’t far from the central London but is surrounded by woods and commons and feels very different to Hither Green a couple of stations closer to the centre. Even as a suburb it feels very rural, with what looks like a large village pond and village green.

Chislehurst is one of the ‘realms’ in the London May Queen Festival, but is finding it hard to keep going and attract new young girls to carry on the tradition (see London May Queen 2005 and Chislehurst May Queen 2006) for more pictures of them.

So getting publicity in the local area is very important. They need people to notice them and the May Queen Festival, and to bring their daughters and grand-daughters along to take part in the fun. Obviously the girls who do take part are enjoying it, but it is also a commitment and takes hard work to practice the maypole dances and so on.

To get some publicity the week before the May Queen Festival they organised a sponsored fancy-dress pub crawl. I met up with them at The Lounge, a fairly newly refurbished bar at the top of the hill to the north of the town centre, with an interesting decor.

From there we went down into the centre of Chislehurst, letting people know about the May Queen and collecting money both on the street and in the pubs we visited.

I was sorry to have to leave after the third pub, when perhaps things were beginning to warm up a little, but it was fun, and I hope will help to raise the profile of the May Queen group in the area.
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London May Queen: Bromley May Queens

I’d promised this year’s London May Queen, Erin, that I would try to photograph her, and unfortunately I had to be elsewhere for her actual crowning at Hayes in May. So Bromley seemed a good place to catch up with her and take some pictures, as there she would be appearing with five local may queens from groups around the area – Bromley Common, Shortlands, Hayes, Hayes Common and Hayes Village.

Erin, the 2007 London May Queen, is easy to recognise in my pictures as she is carrying a frame with pink roses and white flowers that says ‘I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley‘, as well as a sash saying ‘London May Queen‘.

Unfortunately we got on the wrong bus to get to Bromley and enjoyed a long tour of most of the outer reaches of south-east London before finally arriving there. It didn’t help that the address I had for the start was rather vague, but finally we met up with the procession almost exactly where we had got off the bus 15 minutes of wandering earlier, and walked with the procession through the centre of the town to the gardens.

It was a shame that the police had apparently insisted that the procession rush through the town centre. It was led by the band of T S Endeavour, playing ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ (and other popular tunes) and I’m sure they could have marched at half the pace without causing great traffic chaos – much of the centre is in any case pedestrianised.

Some of the younger girls taking part really had to run to keep up through the town centre. Events such as this enliven towns (and Bromley could do with an awful lot of enlivening, being total shopping hell) adding colour and individuality, and it seems far more important to celebrate them to the maximum than worry excessively about traffic flow.

At the gardens things were more relaxed, and the London May Queen was able to crown those of the other queens who had not already been crowned at their own local ceremonies, and there were many pictures taken by me and the mothers and fathers.

Again it’s a shame that Bromley doesn’t have a maypole and there wasn’t any singing or dancing or acting. But it was a nice summery afternoon and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

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Pratts Bottom Village Fete – 2008

Pratts Bottom Village Fete – Saturday 17th May, 2008. I have to admit that until shortly before I went there I’d never heard of Pratt’s Bottom, one of those many amusing British place names. Locals seem now to prefer it without the apostrophe, (and Fete without its circumflex) although Wikipedia largely sticks to its use.

This ancient Kent village was once home to members of the Pratt family who owned large areas of Kent as well as bits of Wales, Sussex and London. Wikipedia tells me that Sir John Pratt was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1718 to 1725. One of his sons was raised to the peerage in 1765 and sensibly took the name of Baron Camden rather than Pratt (and later added Viscount Bayham and Earl Camden to his titles.)

The name change was fortunate for residents of that area of North London we know as Camden Town, who otherwise might be living in Pratt Town in the London Borough of Pratt. Though South Londoners might find that amusingly apt.

The Bottom in the name is simply indicating that this was a valley. The community web site says that until the 1830s it was on the toll road from London to Hastings and was the haunt of smugglers and highwaymen including Dick Turpin, a man who certainly got around to pubs as well as York.

Now it seems pretty remote, and its hard to see why it was hijacked into the London Borough of Bromley in 1965, particularly when highly built-up areas such as Staines and Stanwell in the west were evicted – and are still outside Transport for London’s Zone 6.

I’d previously photographed a number of the May Queen festivals in London, particularly those at Orpington, just a couple of miles to the north-west, where the organisers there had told me that I should visit the Pratts Bottom Village Fete – and so I decided to go there in 2008, a week after I had photographed the 96th London May Queen being crowned at Hayes.

Here’s what I wrote about my visit to Pratt’s Bottom in 2008:

I’d never been to Pratts Bottom before despite the enticing name, so the traditional English Village Fete seemed worth attending, particularly since it includes a procession with several May Queens, including those from Orpington, Green St Green and Petts Wood, along with Pratts Bottom’s own May Queen.

Pratts Bottom, despite being in the London borough of Bromley seems very much out in the country, beyond the leafy suburbs. Unfortunately, thanks to a confusion over times (and only an hourly train service) I arrived just as the procession reached the village green. And unfortunately for all of us it was raining.

As well as the May queens, and a childrens’ fancy dress contest, there were a full range of stalls along the village green and some other activities in the village hall, not to mention the Bulls Head, where I was not surprised to find the Morris men.

I waited to see the Morris dancing, then rushed off down the hill to catch a train home. A fine but steady rain was still falling, and the heavy damp air was filled with the heady scent of hawthorn and cow parsley. It seems odd that this area is included in London while highly built-up areas such as Spelthorne are excluded.

Many more pictures at Pratts Bottom Village Fete.

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Bromley May Queens Crowning – 2008

Bromley May Queens Crowning – On Saturday 19th April I went to Bromley to photograph the crowning ceremony of the May Queens from Bromley Common and Shortlands in an event also attended by May Queen groups from West Wickham, Hayes, Hayes Village and Hayes Common. This is the largest of the May Queen events before the annual crowning of the London May Queen in May.

Although in recent years my photography has largely been around protests, with the occasional walk thrown in, back in the first decade of this century I was also photographing a wide range of cultural events in London, including a number of religious festivals and other celebrations. And one of the lengthier projects I engaged in was on May Queen festivals in London.

Although I’d grown up in London and lived near it for most of my adult life (and still do) I had never come across May Queen festivals, though perhaps I may have seen some of the old newsreels from pre-war days I thought they were a thing of the past.

In a post written earlier in April 2008 I described how I came to find out more and to start a project which led to me finding out more and starting a project on them in 2005:

It was the work of Tony Ray-Jones that first attracted me to May Queens, with his posthumous ‘A Day Off’, published in 1974 containing half a dozen of his pictures from May Queen festivals (though only four really connected with May Queens.) One of these – certainly the least interesting image – showed around 30 young women in three rows in front of a maypole, all wearing crowns. Despite the misleading caption, ‘May Queen Gathering, Sittingbourne, 1968’, in a later publication it was identified correctly as a picture of the annual London May Queen festival at Hayes, Kent.

Although I didn’t think it one of his better pictures it struck me as an interesting event, and even more so when I went to photograph it in 2005, and started to look up a little of its history.
Crowning of the Hayes Realms

Eventually I had enough pictures to publish a book, and had been promised an exhibition at a major museum – though this never materialised. The book, London May Queens ISBN: 978-1-909363-06-9 is still available from Blurb, either as an expensive print version or as a PDF, and the work has also been featured on other web sites including Lensculture.

Here is the Blurb blurb:
“2012 saw the crowning of the London’s 100th May Queen. The first Merrie England and London May Queen festival was held in 1913 and it has continued every year since. In the 1920s and 30s it was a major event, covered by cinema newsreels and competitions in daily newspapers, but now it is known to few outside the over 20 local realms that take part in the annual event. The 72 pictures in this work give a unique insight into this community event.“

It’s worth going to the Blurb link to see the extensive preview of the work, which includes all of the text of the book as well as many of my favourite images from the project.

Girls generally join their local May Queen group at an early age and progress through the various roles in the group as they get older – and if they stay long enough become their group May Queen, after which they can join the London May Queen group and similarly progress to become London May Queen. As well as practising for the festival events the groups also have other activities – and teas etc.

The Bromley area May Queens Crowning is one of the larger events in the May Queen Season, with a number of local May Queen groups processing through the centre of Bromley to Church House Gardens next to the Churchill Theatre where some of the May Queens were crowned. The previous week I’d been to another event where three of them had previously been crowned and the following week there was another crowning festival in Beckenham a week before the final crowning of the London May Queen at Hayes.

At the end of the ceremony the girls process back to a church hall for a tea, but I was too tired to go with them and felt in need of something stronger.

Many more pictures at Bromley May Queens Crowning.

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The Sultan’s Elephant, Buddha’s Birthday & May Queens

The Sultan’s Elephant, Buddha’s Birthday & May Queens – Satiurday May 6th was another varied day for me.

The Sultan’s Elephant – Westminster

“Just why does it take so many people to drive an elephant when one elephant can do it on its own?” was the question that came to me while watching the Sultan’s Elephant making its ponderous way around central London. The 12 metre high mechanical elephant, along with the Little Princess was constructed by French company Royal De Luxe and appeared to have around 20 drivers as well as a cast of under-employed actors.

And, as I commented, “it did occur to me to ask why the Arts Council was spending so much of our money on guys who wanted to play with big toys.” Rather than art it seemed to me to be “more or less a larger version of model railways to me, or perhaps even more a simplistic version of a computer game fantasy made manifiest” and little about art. “More Disneyland.”

Buddha’s 2550th Birthday – Leicester Square

A quarter of a mile to the north, celebrations were taking place in Chinatown of Buddha’s 2,550th birthday, organised by London Fo Guang Temple, one of two UK branches of the Taiwanese Fo Guang Shan Order who have a temple in Margaret St in a rather nice Grade II listed former Parish School and Church House designed by William Butterfield and built in 1868-70.

The festival was continuing over two days, but I only stayed for around an hour, photographing a colourful procession which included two lions and the Mayor of Westminster.

Chislehurst May Queen Ceremonies – Chislehurst

Chislehurst is around ten miles from the centre of London, in Kent until brought into Greater London on the edge of the London Borough of Bromley in 1965. Fortunately trains from Charing Cross go there in around half an hour, which makes it a popular commuter town, and took me there, where I had been invited by the organisers of the Chislehurst May Queen to photograph their May Queen Ceremonies.

Traditionally May had been a time when the New Year and Spring was celebrated, when young men and women danced together and often rather more, and a queen of the may was chosen to lead the event. Oliver Cromwell banned the celebrations as sinful pagan events, and although they came back after the restoration the events slowly died out or became more formal.

As I noted: “There was a revival of interest in old customs in the Victorian era, with various ‘Merrie England’ events being organised. Some schools had maypoles and learnt the dances and many Sunday Schools had their may queens who often took a leading part in Whit Walks.“

I became interested in these continuing events in 2005, going to photograph the Merrie England and London May Queen Festival at Hayes, Kent (also in LB Bromley.) It was the start of a project that led to my self-published book London’s May Queens (ISBN: 978-1-909363-06-9) and almost to a major museum exhibition, plans for which fell through at the last hurdle.

Book Preview

The book preview contains an essay on the history of London’s May Queens and a number of photographs from various May Queen events. Although print copies of the book are expensive you can purchase a reasonably priced PDF version.

But putting the pictures from this first event I photographed in 2005 on-line attracted a great deal of interest, particularly among the families involved, and led to me being invited to other events such as this at Chislehurst, who were particularly keen that I should photograph their proper maypole dancing.

*Last year’s Queen crowns the new May Queen*

As I explain on My London Diary, “Any girl five or over who lives or has grandparents who live in Chislehurst can join the retinue. They then work their way up the ranks, with the oldest girl of the year of joining having the choice of being Queen or Prince. Several months of twice-weekly rehearsals are required, and as well as the festival they also perform at other events.” From the various ‘realms’ such as Chislehurst, the girls then move on to become a part of the London May Queen group. The Chislehurst group is now open to both boys and girls.

Chislehurst first took part in the London May Queen festival in 1923, ten years after it was founded by Dulwich schoolmaster Joseph Deedy in 2013 – there is more of the history in my book. Their festival involved other groups in the area and seemed very much a community festival. It ended with a tea for the May Queen group in the Methodist church hall, and I waited for the May Queen to cut the cake with the help of her ‘Prince’ before leaving to catch the train back home.

I’m pleased to see that the Chislehust May Queen Society is still continuing – and has a Facebook group and a web site. They will be crowning their 99th May Queen tomorrow, as usual on the first Saturday of May.

More on all these events on the May 2006 page of My London Diary.