It was with the gravest feelings of guilt and trepidation that I stood alongside many parents on my old schoolyard. The annual school fayre had almost reached its crescendo and the crowd had been summoned to gather round to watch the children’s dance routine. Fearing any moment that staff might recognise “he who destroyed that toilet cistern” I casually secreted myself among the crowd.

As the music began and ribbons fluttered in the breeze, echoes from 50 years past filtered through my memory. Before me stood Sister Theresa, nun and class teacher, who was announcing her good news. She had decided that her class would perform a Maypole dance for the forthcoming church bazaar. It would mean lots of practice, even missing some lessons, which had captured our imaginations immediately.

After much cheering and exclamations of approval, accompanied by carefully-hidden digs in the ribs of our partners, we were her undying servants. But Sister Theresa was no fool. Having hooked us, she gradually dragged us into her net. Those lessons idled away in practice would have to be made up somewhere. We were to do a topic, and lots of it could be done at home.

Utterly hoodwinked by the novelty of the word, we all approved, though the thought of what she would have done to quell any rebellion still sends shivers down my spine. Those were the days when education was deemed good for you, rather like sprouts with youngsters today, and if you refuse to partake then heaven help you!

So duringjanuary and February we learned that the dance probably originated in the early Middle Ages and was one of the ways that people celebrated the arrival of spring. Some places, like Derbyshire had well-dressing, other like our own county of Staffordshire had morris dancing, but the most popular and most widespread was the Maypole dance.

It began just before May 1 with the villagers setting up the pole on the village green and decorating it with wild flowers and ribbons. Some villages even left the pole in its position for the whole year. In fact the Maypole itself became a focal point in lots of towns and villages until the Puritans forced their removal, protesting that they were objects of lewd behaviour. A plaque in Banbury High street confirms this, the Maypole being ceremoniously removed in 1595.

The pole, we were to learn, represented the trunk of a tree, while the ribbons were its branches. The dance performed around the pole was supposed to represent the tree coming to life after the winter, but how this quite annoyed the Puritans merely baffled us youngsters and Sister Theresa was not about to go into further details of “lewd behaviour”.

By the end of February our notebooks were growing ever full and we were convinced that she had forgotten the practising. But not Sister Theresa! One cold, March morning she trooped us from the classroom out on to the yard. The months of waiting were over.

The choreography, especially designed by Sister Theresa, was to be a deliberately simple
affair, to suit our meagre skills. All it consisted of was the boys moving in an anti-clockwise direction while holding the ribbons and then weaving alternately left and then right round the girls who stood still holding their ribbons. When going to the left of a girl the boy ducked under her ribbon; when going right of the girl he passed his ribbon over hers. When the music stopped the boys stood still and the girls then repeated the routine, moving clockwise.

Simplicity itself, or so Sister Theresa thought. What she had not catered for was that we either had two left feet or no traffic sense at all. Within minutes chaos ensued and each expert blamed others for their incompetence. Violence (the beginnings of road rage?) might have erupted had it not been for the shrill intervention of the whistle.

Having realised her mistake, Sister Theresa prompdy re-organised and the “unlucky” ones were sidelined. Within a week we had managed to “walk” the routine without further technical hitches. It was time to introduce music.

A gramophone was wheeled out, one of those which needed winding. Tommy Carter, one of the first to be axed from the dance, was to be chief handle turner. However, with the addition of music every step, once so carefully learned, was instantly forgotten and panic and recrimination soon reigned. Order was restored after several screams and well-placed slaps. Tommy received the hardest blow for forgetting to wind the handle. He had become so engrossed in the debacle that once-lively musical caper had degenerated into something resembling a funeral march.

As the weeks rolled by and April appeared, the final 16 had been chosen, including myself. It was then that rumours began to spread concerning the true purpose behind Mavpole dancing. One rejected member of the class, eager for revenge no doubt, had found a library book which told of other reasons for the May ceremony – and all of them with dire consequences for the participants!
Apparently in Tudor England it was the custom for young people to go into the woods the night before May 1 and gather branches and flowers. Returning at sunrise they decorated their houses and the Maypole. These people were probably sweethearts and probably destined to marry. Stories from other European countries were very similar.

In Germany boys secretly planted May trees in front of their sweetheart’s house, while in Switzerland May pines were placed under a girl’s window, and in Czechoslovakia (a name which casts thoughts of certain evil in our young minds) boys placed Maypoles before their lover’s window in the dead of night.

The end result of all that information became evident at the next rehearsal. The news having reached the girls also, we all stood as far away from each another as humanly possible. There was grim determination not so much as touch the “enemy” lest Sister Theresa tell our parents and we were forced then to marry!

What then followed was a dance with such grotesque gyrations that all pretence of rhythm and grace were utterly abandoned. The Maypole itself, unable to bear the discordant tugs of its branches, crashed to the ground amid shouts of “timber” from the onlookers.

Sister Theresa had had enough. Her subsequent threats were far worse than any possible marriage and she determined to stamp out further revolt. Perfection was her keystone and she would have it even if that meant practising until midnight – every night.

It did not take long, and at the pre-destined hour of church fayre we were ushered out amid a throng of expectant parents and strangers who had gathered round the Maypole. After a long silence the music had begun.

The clapping which followed seemed too sudden, but I was back 50 years with another crowd at my old school and the children were taking their bows, watched over by a thoroughly modern version of Sister Theresa.

Anthony Hunt