The sight of the Maypole standing on the Village green, with its ribbons pinned out in a colourful circle on a Saturday morning, heralds the approach of the Oakhanger May Fayre. As the day approached, villagers kindly donated prizes for the raffle, hoopla and tombola, they looked out goods for the White Elephant, plants for the plant stall or offered to sew for the Handicraft stall. The village was mobilised for the first village gathering of the year!
The day of the Fayre brought a colourful picture of tents and gazebos – the sun shone as the stall holders ferried goods to and fro and the barbeque fired up and was kept busy cooking sausages and burgers. Cars began to turn up for what turned out to be the biggest car display ever at this event – vintage treasures, a Unimog which had just driven to Timbuktu and back, an army vehicle from the Bordon camp and many more.
The arrival of the Guest of Honour, Hilary Bishop, at 2.00pm signalled the beginning of the Fayre. This was the 20th year that Hilary Bishop has brought her team of dancers from her School of Dance to the Oakhanger May Fayre and we thank her for her support over the years and for bringing her girls and boys to entertain us in their colourful costumes, to delightful displays of dancing.
At the opening of the Fayre there was already a huge crowd of visitors on the village green. As the May Queen in-waiting, Kate Chapman, lead a procession of her attendants and maypole dancers in their pretty dresses to the waiting cars, the village green erupted in spontaneous applause. Kate travelled in an open topped car with her senior attendants while the others followed in two amazing stretch limousines in which they toured the village. In their absence the stalls were declared open and the village green became a flurry of activity as the visitors tackled the many sideshows.
The new May Queen, Kate Chapman was crowned by the retiring May Queen Alexandra Haymes. Her senior attendants were Leah Foulds and Hannah Gay and her junior attendants, Neve Randall and Archie Myers. It was then time for the maypole dancing and after each ribbon had been claimed, there followed a traditional display of dance, thoroughly enjoyed by parents, visitors and children alike!
There then followed a busy few hours as the green filled up near to bursting with visitors, the queues at the tombola and homemade ice cream stalls never seemed to get any shorter while children hunted treasure, won sweets at the sweet tombola, plucked eggs to win prizes, took pony rides, had their faces painted, chose lucky nails and bought helium balloons to see how far they would travel. Fortunes were told, china smashed, burgers and pancakes eaten and the village hall turned out cups of tea with cake to a queue of visitors stretching out of the door all day.
The Hilary Bishop School of Dance pushed back the crowds to find room to put on a wonderful variety of dances, followed by the Appalachian Dancers and their band, who rehearse in the Oakhanger village hall and who once again entertained us with their super display of toe tapping dance and music.
Thank you to all those who ran a stall/sideshow on the green, helped in the kitchen, donated cakes/ raffle/hoopla and tombola prizes, donated pottery for the china smashing, goods for the white elephant and displayed their car. Thank you also to everyone who helped put up the tents, collect tables from other villages, put up signs and pack everything away again afterwards.
Thank you to Adrain Marsh and Tara and Jason from Barondale for the use of their cars, Coomers for sponsoring the Balloon Race, the Army Camp for bringing their vehicle along, to all the Appalachian Dancers, Rebecca Simpson and Kate Wynde for training up our maypole dancers, Wendy Lowe and her band for providing maypole dancing music and Jane Alexander for making up all the hanging baskets.
We raised around £3,000 for the village hall, some of which will go towards the new roof which will cover the paved area at the back of the Hall so that even the rain won’t stop us sitting outside there in future.
It was a wonderful day full of smiles, sun, dancing and fun – Thank you to everyone who helped make it such a special day.