May Day has been a special day in Eaton Socon, certainly since before living memory. The entire village green would be given over to traditional dancing and other festivities, and the whole community would turn out to watch. ESCA has now been organising the celebrations for forty years – sadly we haven’t quite managed forty May Days in that time as the pandemic intervened to prevent the last two, but we’re determined to return this year as best we can.

While we started small in 1983, with a portable Maypole and a handful of local groups with a table each, the day has grown longer in time and spread out to cover every inch of the Green as more groups and small businesses have taken part. It’s a big opportunity for fundraising, with ESCA itself making about £12,000 over my tenure as coordinator to plough back into our community and other charities making many times that in total.

However, not all is as rosy as we’d like. Our regular team has depleted over the last couple of years, some of our plans have scaled back a bit this year to fit what we have available to us, and we’re on the lookout for more (and younger!) volunteers to make 2022 a success and take ESCA and May Day forwards in future years to do even better. There’s plenty to do both in getting everyone coordinated beforehand, and keeping things running smoothly on the day. We’re already training the next generation of maypole dancers at Bushmead, we’re really looking forward to having a May Queen and Princesses again who will represent us at functions throughout the year, and we’ll be showcasing some talented young singers on the day. So while things may be somewhat different this year, we do still intend to get everyone outside to have a great time. Just pray for sunshine!