For Guyanese of yesteryear, the merry month of May was hailed as ‘the beginning of summer’ for the locals in the tropical seasons of rainy and dry weather. Though lacking the Christmas spirit of December, and the Easter kite-flying and Regatta of March/April, May named after the Greek goddess Maia, was our ‘lusty’ month.
On the second Sunday in May we paid tributes to our mothers; and enjoyed a public holiday on the 24th celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday, while the Roman Catholic community crowned the Virgin Mary, Queen of the May in floral choral processions. Our infant trade union movement founded by Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow in 1919 would flaunt their growing strength with their solidarity May Day parade around the city in red shirts, which scared the privileged government officials and plantocracy; and on May 26, 1966 we achieved Independence.
But the highlight of May was the May fairs with their glorious, magnificent maypole plaiting. On the first Saturday of May, the YMCA ground, Thomas Lands, hosted a lavish fair with booths of gourmet cookie delights; home-made crafts; jams and jellies; knitting and crochet; and games of ‘chance’ including over and under, spin board, pull the strings, hoopla, crown the bottle and the popular hand-turned ferris wheel.
In the middle of the field, the symbolic ‘Maypole’ stood in homage with the Militia Band in their colourful uniforms belting out Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Binge’s Elizabethan Serenade plus the folksy Satira Gal and Itanami. The May Queen with her court and pages would emerge from the pavilion to set up court, as three dozen plaiters in white fairy dresses and hair bows executed dances and jigs to form intricate ribbon patterns. This was our age of innocence, yesteryear.
On the last Saturday of May, the May fair at the Kitty sea wall was just as pleasant an affair, and probably the ‘best’ says Dr Juliet Emanuel, of the Borough of Manhattan College, NY. She remembers the dancers rehearsing for months with Mrs Cumberbatch, whose pregnancy gave rise to much trepidation one year – ‘will she, wont she.’ But all went well. The coronation was a treat. Beautiful girls in white dresses, with blue and red ribbons patterned from the latest Woman and Home, and Bella Hess magazines. Mothers, aunties, grandmothers, sisters, macmays gathered to discuss colours and lengths of ribbon which replaced the six yards used for practice.
The chief designer was Mrs Cray, (Pere Street) with rehearsals held at St James-the-Less School.
The plaiting choreography started with circles, hands touching, and then the dancers moved up to the tape. Next the glorious days of the ribbons and small bouquets, with every bad boy praying that Mr Miranda, the tallest man in the village would have to catch the flyaway ribbons.
The best seats were on the sea wall, with lots of ice cream cones passed over the fence. Harry Mayers and the Militia Band provided the music which included God save the Queen and Hawley Bryant’s Song of Guyana’s Children. The Maypole was plaited to:
Come Lasses and Lads,
take leave of your Dads
and away to the Maypole hie.
For every he has got him a she,
and the fiddler’s standing by.
The Queen for the previous year paid homage to the new Queen and the one from two years before did the same as Dowager Queen.
Claire Patterson/Monah remembers the Lodge Village May fair as the biggest and most exciting event in Lodge. It started with her mother and aunts participating in the colourful pageantry, then she and her sisters inherited the event. They joined Mr Sturge’s Club at the Village Office and every year looked forward to wearing the pretty dresses, stiff with a can-can underneath. To top it off, they wore patent leather shoes, with hair slicked tight with bright coloured ribbons – everyone feeling like queen for the day. It was so much fun that every little girl’s dream was to be in Mr Sturge’s Club, just to plait the Maypole.
Claire remembers friend Tangerine Clarke “bussing de pole” at the 1969 May fair and her Mom Ms Wolfe and the spectators “cracking up with laughter.” In 1970 Claire was crowned the politically correct, ‘Miss Republic’ by Winifred Gaskin, Editor of Booker News, as ‘Queen’ became a dodo locally.
Malcolm Hall, President of GCA in Brooklyn reminded me that Smith’s Church and St Stephen’s had great Maypole events also. The best part for him was every child receiving a ‘goodie bag’ to take home, in addition to the churned ice-cream and eating the ‘salted’ ice. The big crime of that period was when someone stole your goodie bag.
In 2007 I was overjoyed to witness the YMCA May fair still going strong, and I had a most enjoyable afternoon. My first May fair experience at this same ground was in 1943 – 67 years ago. The next year, my mother gave me a ticket and four cents spending money to attend the fair. But London Cinema on Camp Street was showing a serial King of the Forest Rangers and the four cents just covered the pit half-price ticket.
It is heartening to read that Barbara Richards staged a May fair on May 1 2008, at St Mark’s Presbyterian Church, La Retraite, West Demerara, with the intention of reviving the art of Maypole plaiting. She is keen to teach the youngsters of today the intricate art of plaiting the traditional ‘Cobweb/Ladder/Swirl and Bread,’ and has introduced new designs of her own, including the Airplane, the In-and-out-Swirl and the Broom. She plans a bigger better May fair in the future.
Golden Memories of Guyana 1940 to 1980 are available at Austin’s Bookstore and Shell’s Service Station, Vlissengen Road.
