deadheaduk

This is the video I shot on May Day morning on Bluebell hill.

A Place called England

I rode out on a bright May morning
Like a hero in a song
Looking for a place called England
Trying to find where I belong
Couldn’t find the old flood meadow
Or the house that I once knew
No trace of the little river
Or the garden where I grew

I saw town and I saw country
Motorway and sink estate
Rich man in his rolling acres
Poor man still outside the gate
Retail park and burger kingdom
Prairie field and factory farm
Run by men who think that England’s
Only a place to park their car

But as the train pulled from the station
Through the wastelands of despair
From the corner of my eye
A brightness filled the filthy air
Someone’s grown a patch of sunflowers
Though the soil is sooty black
Marigolds and a few tomatoes
Right beside the railway track

Down behind the terraced houses
In between the concrete towers
Compost heaps and scarlet runners
Secret gardens full of flowers
Meeta grows the scent of roses
Right beneath the big jet’s path
Bid a fortune for her garden
Eileen turns away and laughs

So rise up George and wake up Arthur
Time to rouse out from your sleep
Deck the horse in the sea-green ribbons
Drag the old sword from the deep
Hold the line for Dave and Daniel
As they tunnel through the clay
While the oak in all its glory
Soaks up sun for one more day

And come all you at home with freedom
Whatever the land that gave you birth
There’s room for you both root and branch
As long as you love the English earth
Room for vole and room for orchid
Room for all to grow and thrive
Just less room for the fat landowner
On his arse in his four-wheel drive

England is not flag or Empire
It is not money it is not blood
It’s limestone gorge and granite fell
It’s Wealden clay and Severn mud
It’s blackbird singing from the may-tree
Lark ascending through the scales
Robin watching from your spade
And English earth beneath your nails

So here’s two cheers for a place called England
Badly used but not yet dead
A Mr. Harding sort of England
Hanging in there by a thread
Here’s two cheers for the crazy Diggers
Now their hour shall come around
We can plant the seed they saved us
Common wealth and common ground

Maggie Holland

It’s been the annual Sweeps Festival in Rochester this weekend and as usual the street have been filled with the sounds of Morris men, the jingle of bells, the clashing of sticks and a myriad of folk tunes played on accordions, whistles, guitars fiddles and mandolins. From the white shirts and hankies of the Cotswold sides, through the clog dancers to the black faces and tattered jackets of the Border Morris men, there are traditional dances and dances with a modern twist every where you look.

As well as the music in the street music spills from almost every pub and street corner, folk singers, folk bands, hurdy gurdy players, traditional folk, folk rock even folk punk! There’s a marquee in the castle grounds and an open air stage in a car park or you can just catch impromptu performances under a tree or in a beer garden.

This year, because of the way the dates fell, the festival opened with the traditional Jack in the Green awakening ceremony at the top of Bluebell Hill. The ceremony starts at sunrise which is at 5:32 am, in a ring of fire sits the jack in the green who has been slumbering through the winter. At the appointed time the members of Motley Morris carrying sticks shovels form a circle around the Jack and sing the Jack in the Green song to awaken him. Once the jack is awoken they dance around him before making way for other Morris sides to dance in their own particular way. The Loose Women, Wolf’s Head and Vixen, The Gong Scourers, Beltane Morris and Bishop Gundulf and others dance in their own particular styles.

I’ve been going to the May Day ceremony since 1992, first as a member of the audience and then as a member of Wolf’s Head and now as a member of the audience again. I danced the Wolf’s Head signature dance, The Four Seasons, for the first time here in 2003 and I was glad to see them dancing it again this year. Over the years I’ve taken my camera and this year was no exception. I also took my video camera this year and hopefully will put together a short video of the morning soon.

In the meantime you can see my photographs taken with my Fuji S9600 or my HTC Magic cameraphone using FxCamera here

I was still working at 12:45 this morning when my phone buzzed to let me know an e-mail had arrived. I looked to see what it was and it was an automated e-mail to let me know that my friend’s blog had been updated with a private message. I don’t know why, perhaps it was the time it arrived, but I knew instantly that it was going to tell me that she had died.

When I logged in the title of the post “Very Sad News” confirmed my instinct. I’d known for some time that she had been ill, she had been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus some time ago and she had undergone major surgery but her last post had informed us that her condition has worsened and that the prognosis was that she only had 6 months to live at best.

In some ways I guess it is better that she went as quickly as she did, at least she didn’t have to suffer a slow and agonising death. I feel sorry for her family especially “t’old man” and her two daughters and my thoughts are with them at this time.

Isadora was one of the first friends I made when I first started blogging about 5 years ago. She had been one of the first people to set up a blog on blog.co.uk and she had called it “Greetings from a Greeter” because she worked in Asda at that time and she would often blog about the strange events that went on in her shop. Even after I left blog.co.uk I still kept in touch – she was only one of two of my blog friends that I kept in contact with.

She had such a zest for life and could see beauty in almost anything. She had been a hippie in the 1960’s and had gone to some of the big UK festivals including the Isle of Wight events. She would often reminisce about her youth which had been quite eventful including a time when she had to be repatriated from Ibiza which resulted in her having her passport taken off her and when she wanted to go abroad about 30 years later she had to pay the £10 that she had been loaned to get home before she could get a new one.

She had a passion for music and Spain. She would often pack up her tent and head off to a local folk festival for the weekend and blog about the music and the dancers and whatever else had attracted her attention. She also went off to Spain regularly and stayed with a Spanish family she had met on her first visit. She had been taking Spanish classes and although she said she wasn’t very good – I suspect that she was really. I also seem to recall her taking up belly dancing at one point as well.

It’s such a tragedy that such a life should be cut short in such a cruel way, she was only just in her sixties and was looking forward to retiring and having fun. I for one will miss her dearly and even though I never actually met her I feel honoured to have been her (cyber) friend. And judging by the comments on her blog I won’t be alone in that.

Rest in Peace Isadora – the world has lost one of it’s brightest lights.