Bringing in the May

May at Bodiam Castle

I've been racking my brains over what to write about. I try to blog at least once a week. More as an exercise for myself, than for the benefit and edification of my ‘audience’. Possible topics have included ‘male nudity on screen’ (in view of the recent piece of flaccid putty that made a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in Game of Thrones last week) ‘American vs British sitcoms’, ‘the issue of race’ (which will definitely be visited at some point).

But there it was, a suitable topic, twinkling away under my nose all the time: old English traditions. It’s the second May bank holiday weekend and there is rich material to be had in our recent visit to Bodiam Castle (as if I haven’t bored you enough with the photos).

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/bodiam-castle

Bodiam is said to exemplify the quintessential medieval castle. It has a moat around it, a portcullis and four towers. No one has actually lived there since the seventeenth century, but it's last private owner, Lord Curzon, bequeathed it to the National Trust in the early twentieth century and they have lovingly restored it. 
At Bodiam we learnt about ‘Bringing in the May’;  a custom from the Dark Ages when there was no Netflix and no pistachio Magnums, where life expectancy was around forty, so twenty was considered to be middle-aged! It wasn't all bad, though, once a year you got to dance around the maypole, get plastered and go into the woods with the spotty youth of your choice - presumably to identify different berries and hawthorn plants by moonlight...

Of three things you can be assured when you visit a National Trust property: 
1) Some lovely, home made cake.
2) A gift shop, selling jams, curds, plants and things with a flowery covering (diaries, soaps, garden implements). 
3) Sprightly, keen staff who know the history of the property, inside out! Some of these people dress up as historical characters and can answer any question you pose to them (although they seem a bit fuzzy on the whole Brexit debate).

I spent twenty minutes with Sir Edward Dallingridge’s ‘washerwoman’. She never came out of character and we bashed some snowy white shifts with her washing bats. She gave me a comprehensive history of the castle, talking about the role of women: past and present and the way in which the last owner of the castle - Lord Curzon M.P, was opposed to giving women the vote. She told me that there would be an exhibition on the Suffragettes, next weekend - June 4th 2016.

I was surprised to learn that some women in the Middle ages became powerful while their men were away at war (The Hundred years war). Women also had to take over traditionally male roles, in the workplace, as they did in WW2.

Financially a woman could flourish under certain circumstances. She said that there were no restrictions on how many shares/gilts a woman could own but men were only allowed one.

I used to view history as an upward line of progress, and indeed, I think that was how we were encouraged to think of it, at school,  but I now more commonly (and depressingly) view it as a wheel.

The ‘washerwoman’ had a life of hard work but had travelled to France with her employer (Dallingridge) to ensure that he had the whitest shirts. (He sounds like a bit of a show off - very found of stained glass windows).

So, going back to the ‘Bringing in the May’ talk, which we had in the ‘Great Hall’, which is now carpeted with grass. My daughters made a beeline for the ‘thrones’ so the older one was rewarded with the title and crown of May Queen.

May symbolised the end of a hard winter; where food was very scarce and they had no good methods for storing and preserving food. Where they’d been ploughing the land, doing all this hard hard physical work, fasting for Lent, then May came, bringing warmer weather, longer days and more light. It helped that we were having this talk on a brilliantly sunny day. Of course, May Day was about a reversal of social roles, where the plebs could be nobs for a day. And we plebs experienced it that day as the guide referred to us as ‘my lord and my lady’.  

So, all in all a great day out, where history nosed up against the present and there was a sobering portent for the future, with a sign on the grounds that  read, 'flood zone' and the message that in 50 years, they expected that area to be under water because of climate change!