Colganology2: Flora Day 2022

Anyone who has ever lived in the historic Cornish town of Helston knows that it steals a little piece of your soul. It means that, however far away you may travel, there's a niggling ache that starts to gnaw at you as May Day approaches and then just gets more and more painful. It's like Mr Spock in that old 1960s Star Trek episode 'Amok Time' where he has to return home to Vulcan or he will die.

Okay, so it's maybe not quite that serious. But it is a real yearning to return 'home' in time for Flora Day. The Celts have a word for it - in Cornish it's Hireth (the Welsh spell it Hiraeth and the Bretons call it Hiraezh). It has no direct English translation but it means a kind of deep homesickness, a deep longing for somewhere and for times past. All I know is that it's something I feel intensely as Flora Day approaches.

It's hard to explain unless you have experienced something similar, but Flora Day is so woven into the tapestry of the town that Helstonians find it hard to be separated from it. The celebrations have been going on for hundreds of years - the earliest historical mention seems to be in a letter to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1790 where the writer says, 'At Helstone, a genteel and populus borough town in Cornwall, it is customary to dedicate the 8th May to revelry (festive mirth, not loose jollity). It is called Furry Day". The dance is very well attended every year and people travel from all over the world to see it: Helston Town Band play all the music for the dances.' It's the biggest and most important day of the year for the town and its residents and it means a great deal to them all.

The closest analogy I can think of is an avid football fan who has never missed a game and is then told that they can't go to an important match. The pain is quite real. So too with Flora Day which, due to Covid, has not taken place for two years. Therefore, the excitement and anticipation for this year's event has been palpable. I'll try to explain why it gets into our bones. And why I had to be there this year.

Every child in Helston, with very few exceptions, has danced through the streets of the town on Flora Day. From the tiniest infants to the hairiest Sixth Formers, everyone does the Furry Dance. No, not the Floral Dance - that was a terrible single by Terry Wogan. The reason for the confusion lies at the feet of a London composer called Katie Moss who, in 1911, visited the town and joined in with the Furry Dance in the evening. On the train home she wrote words and music of a song about her experience, calling the song 'The Floral Dance'. She quotes the Furry Dance tune in the piano accompaniment to the chorus – though altering the melody in two bars. The tune, as played by Helston Town Band is quite different.

I danced the Furry when I was a babe in arms. See if you can spot me in these two photos from 1973:

(Incidentally, the lad just in front of me is Paul Gooch who went on to win a BAFTA for designing the hair and make up in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland films and was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. He now runs a school of make-up and hair design at Pinewood Studios. Didn't he do well?)

Practicing for the dance took place during school time - that's how seriously it was taken. Meanwhile, in the week leading up to the day itself - usually May 8th (Feast of St Michael, the town's patron saint), or, like this year, Saturday 7th because the 8th fell on a Sunday - the houses are bedecked with flowers and greenery. Hundreds of thousands of bluebells are especially grown for the event every year to stop the countryside being ravaged (like it used to be).

The first dance of the day is at 7am when the band strikes up outside the Guildhall and leads the procession of hundreds of young adults along a complex route that takes around 45 minutes to negotiate. Here's a map that shows the routes of all the day's dances. It'll give you some idea.

I got to the Guildhall at 6.45am expecting the streets to be quiet. I was wrong. I think the whole town had turned out. Two years of no Flora Day, perfect weather, and the fact that this year the day fell on a Saturday created a perfect storm in terms of attendance numbers. The atmosphere was electric. And as the first boom of the big bass drum sounded I genuinely saw grown men crying with happiness.

Maybe it was because the town had got its special day back. Maybe it was just an outpouring of joy after months of lockdown. All I know is that it was very emotional.

The next event was the Hal-An-Tow ('tow' pronounced to rhyme with cow') at 8.30am. This was always my favourite part of Flora Day - a mad, raucous cacophony of horns, drums and bells and a song with an eminently sing-along chorus:

Hal-an-tow, jolly rumble, O.

For we are up as soon as any day, O

And for to fetch the Summer home,

The Summer and the May, O

For Summer is a-come, O,

And Winter is a-gone.

Each verse sees the players acting out aspects of the legendary history of the town, with St Piran arriving on Cornish shores after miraculously sailing across the Irish sea tied to a millstone, plucky Cornishmen fending off Spanish invaders, and St Michael defeating the devil who was flying over Helston at the time, carrying a stone to block the gateway to Hell (he dropped it - the Hell Stone = Helston). There are also verses pertaining to St George and the dragon and even Robin Hood because, due to a complex series of events, traditional May Fairs all over the UK commonly include them. But it's all good colourful, noisy fun and the Hal-An-Tow moves around the town waking anyone up who isn't already out celebrating in the street. Sycamore branches are flourished, Cornish flags are waved, and banners proclaiming Hellys Bys Vykken! (Helston for ever!) are hoisted high. There are Green Men and Teasers, fair maidens and a Mock Mayor, and the amount of noise they make is truly remarkable.

You can watch the whole thing here:

After the anarchy of the Hal-An Tow comes the Children's Dance at 9.50am when 1,200 children from Helston's four schools parade through the streets, accompanied by their teachers in their Sunday best. The boys and the girls dress all in white - the only colour being provided by a school tie or a head garland in school colours, and a sprig of lily of the valley. The boys wear it with the flowers pointing upwards and the girls' pointing downwards.

Here's some of the Children's Dance:

Lunchtime brings us to the main event of the day. The Midday Dance is performed in morning suits and the poshest frocks and it's considered a great honour to take part. It's invite only - the leading pair must be Helston born - and the hat shop does very well indeed.

I wasn't invited to dance this year, but I was invited to tea by the mayor, Tim Grattan-Kane, a very old friend of mine. He has to walk at the front of every single dance and probably clocks up around 10-15 miles during the day. He was very pleased to rest his feet before setting off again.

Here's some of the Midday Dance:

Then, finally, there's the Evening Dance, which starts at 5pm. Back in my childhood the 7am dance was called the 'Mufti Dance' and anyone could take part dressed however they like. Then, the same people would put on their finery and dance again at 5pm. These days they make an effort for both dances and, while the hardiest souls (and soles) dance twice, there are many who just do one or the other.

The dance ends when the procession reaches Lismore, a rather grand house that sits incongruously among beautiful gardens right in the middle of the town. There's bubbly and nibbles and Flora Day comes to a close. Except of course for a wild evening of drinking and singing patriotic songs in the town's pubs.

As I said at the start, Flora Day is an annual calling home of the faithful. It's like the Bat Signal being shone in the sky and we old Helstonians have to respond. Every year I go back I'm reunited with friends I sometimes haven't seen in decades. Many live even further away from Helston than I do - I bumped into one old school chum who now lives in Australia. But they had to come back. Because Flora Day is a part of who they are.

It's a part of who I am too.